I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach for his patience. He is a gentleman, no doubt about it.

I remind my honourable friend in Fianna Fáil that I have a little box on the top of everything I earn, and it is called the universal social charge, thanks to them, the builders and the banks, so I will not-----

Did Senator O'Donnell win the lottery today?

I am a member of the Joint Committee on Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and we have a very fine Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. When we look at the whole area of culture - music, dance, drama, visual arts, literature, poetry and all the myriad of the arts - from the time we are children to the time we are old but young at heart, it is an enormous, universal area and an expression of the human being. If we then look at heritage, we are into the whole area of the environment, hedges, trees, animals, peatlands, birds and insects - what my colleague, Senator Grace O'Sullivan was speaking about yesterday - a world of life, a universe of biodiversity that is slowly eroding.

I have an important question in this regard. I want to ask the Leader what one does, as a Senator, to try to get both of those Departments separated. In 2019, there should be a Department with a specific outline of biodiversity and environment - of our living, diverse environment. I am not talking about the environment of building-----

Senator Leyden is totally out of order. He heard the Cathaoirleach yesterday.

It is not me. It is the phone that is out of order.

It is the Senator's phone. If Members are going to behave like this, I will do what the Cathaoirleach promised yesterday and suspend the House for an hour. Be very careful, the whole lot of you. Senator Marie-Louise O'Donnell, without interruption.

It is a very important issue. The reason I say it is that if we listen to the farmers, Birdwatch Ireland, the Peatlands Council and the people who come into the Houses and who deal with the environment every day - the actual biodiversity environment - they are not getting a fair chance within this structure in that they have the third part of a Department. At the same time, I suggest that arts and culture need far more emphasis. I am not suggesting that one is greater than the other but that these are so enormous - they are cities and universes in themselves - especially in regard to biodiversity, the environment and its preservation.

As a Senator, I want to know what should I do, or what could we do, to even suggest that those Departments would be separate. At one stage, arts was on its own, then it was in with sport and it is now in with the environment. They are too important-----

The Leader will respond to the Senator on that.

That is my question today. I would like the Senators to think about it. Biodiversity and our abuse of the environment come up every day in the newspapers and on television. Einstein said that the next war would be fought with clubs. He was right. We will end up with no environment.