I welcome our Cabinet member and Minister, Deputy James Lawless, to the House. You are most welcome to Seanad Éireann.

I am sure you will join me in welcoming from the Illinois Senate its president, my good friend Don Harmon, Senator Laura Murphy, the assistant majority leader, Senator May Cappel, state Senator, Representative Jackie Haas, assistant leader, Jeff Keicher, conference chair, Natalie Murphy, state Senator, and the extremely honourable Fran Hurley, who is one of the national co-chairs of the American Irish State Legislators Caucus. She is one of the founding members and has served and continues to serve in many ways in the Illinois House of Representatives. I thank Fran, Don and all the team from Illinois for their visit to Ireland. They are going to go to Cork and I think they are joining the Galway crew later in the week. Of course, Chicago and Galway have a great link. I thank them for being here. They had meetings today in relation to trade, investment and, critically, the Good Friday Agreement, the ongoing support by the United States and state legislators for the peace process. As I have said many times, there are people alive in Ireland today because the United States got involved but also stayed involved in the peace process. For that, we are truly grateful.

Our first Commencement matter is from Senator Stephenson.