David Norris (Independent)

I am glad to have this accidental opportunity to pay tribute to the late Senator Mickey Doherty. I say accidental because it is not on the Order Paper and I was taking a briefing about a completely different matter and I came back here thinking I might have missed an amendment I was interested in on the other Bill. By pure accident, Senator Doherty has served me well.

I am one of the few people here today - there are a sprinkling - who remembers Senator Mickey Doherty. If I recall him correctly, he was a Member of the Seanad when it sat outside in the antechamber and I believe Tras Honan was the Cathaoirleach at that stage. I am sure I will be corrected if I am wrong. They were two very colourful characters who were on the same Seanad election panel. The reason for meeting in the antechamber was because this magnificent chamber was in difficulty and the entire central panel in the ceiling was in a state of collapse. I am sure Senator Doherty, who took an interest in craft and in the economy of this country, would not object to my saying that it is a tribute to the craftsmanship that survives among the Irish that while many people who come into this Chamber look at the panels and comment on how great the talent was back in the days and that such work could not be done these days, the fact is it could. No one could tell the difference between those three panels.

Senator Doherty was a colourful character. We in Dublin are inclined to talk about Dublin characters and bemoan the fact they have all died out and possibly feel the same about politics. Senator Doherty was certainly a colourful character. He was a product of the midlands and I savoured every meeting with him because my own roots on my mother's side are very much from the midlands and he was so much a midlands man. He knew his background and people extraordinarily well. That is a talent. It would be foolish to say he was the greatest orator I ever heard in this House but he knew politics inside out and he knew his own people. I recall the late Frank O'Connor speaking during a class in Trinity College when he taught there for some time and saying that sometimes people dismiss others for being parochial but if one knows one's own parish, one knows the whole world. The danger is being provincial and he made a distinction between the two. Senator Doherty knew his parish so intimately, it gave him an insight into human nature.

I always felt there was something roguish about him. He would flit through the corridors of power with a half smile and a twinkle in his eye and we would know something was up. He was a close adviser of Albert Reynolds who was, in my opinion, another decent man who also came from Longford, rose through the ranks and brought that kind of experience with him. He will be missed. He was a colourful character. It is often said: "Ní fheicfimid a leithéid arís ann"; we will not see his like again. I rather doubt we will see another Mickey Joe Doherty and we are impoverished for that. Some of the colour has gone out of Irish political life. He was also, if I recall correctly, a remarkable tallyman. I imagine he would agree with those of us here who felt there was a place for the píosa páipéir and the peann luaidhe at elections, with all the drama, excitement and human element.

I extend my condolences to his niece and nephew and say that wherever he is, I expect he is up to his ears in it. I, certainly, am sorry he has left us.