Despite de Valera's views, many political scholars consider representing a nation abroad to be the key defining role of a head of state. This view was echoed by the Taoiseach John A. Costello in a debate in Seanad Éireann (the Irish Senate) in December 1948, when he argued that the Republic of Ireland Bill he was introducing would make the President of Ireland the Irish head of state. Despite this conflict, de Valera's party, as the main opposition in the Dáil at the time, decided not to oppose Costello's bill.