In 1979 the people voted to amend the Constitution to provide that the pool of universities that would elect six Members of Seanad Éireann could be widened to include other institutions of higher education in the State. I know Senator Malcolm Byrne also has an interest in this issue. Nothing happened, as often occurs in Irish politics. On 31 March the Supreme Court effectively forced the hand of the Government and the Oireachtas by ruling that the current basis for elections is unconstitutional, because of the exclusion of universities like the University of Limerick. That is the alma mater of Tomás Heneghan who brought the case, and I congratulate him for making legal history. The Supreme Court has not formalised its ruling so as not to undermine the current structure of the Houses, so the Government has until 31 July to make submissions. The Supreme Court seems to have borrowed from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice where Portia is encouraged "to do a great right do a little wrong." I am not sure whether it was judicially activist of the court to make the decision. This is a decision that ought to have been made by the Oireachtas. However, nobody could argue against the need for change in this area. I would like to hear from the Government in early course about what it plans to do. It has had plenty of calls from this House to bring forward reform. I ask for a debate on that issue in early course.

Tomorrow an important piece of legislation will be put before the House, which is the redress scheme. I will not go into it now because it is for debate tomorrow. Many Members have received a lot of correspondence. The parties have received a lot of correspondence. There will be quite a few people listening in to this debate tomorrow externally and internally. When the Taoiseach came to address us last time he spoke about the Seanad being a revising Chamber. He talked about the importance of legislation. A substantial number of promises have been made to these people. Last week, when we had the excitement of the US presidential visit, we saw the President lift a vulnerable and innocent infant child. For anyone blessed to have children or to have been involved in rearing their own children, or nephews and nieces, there is something really important about that, whatever the context of family. While the legislation we will discuss tomorrow will suggest there will be some compensation for a mother who stayed in an institution for one night, a child who spent four months in an institution will receive no redress. We have to see that in the context of the now established knowledge of drug trials that took place in care. I will finish on this point. I would like to think that Members of this House will exercise the responsibility and opportunity we have to revise legislation, and that we think and reflect on it. Tomorrow I will set out a number of views, one of which will be to appeal to the Leader and to this House to pause this legislation for a short period so that we can put our heads together in order that common sense and justice can prevail.