Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

On my behalf and on behalf of the Labour Party, I join Deputy Kenny and the Taoiseach in paying tribute to our late colleague, former Deputy Larry McMahon, and in offering sincere condolences to his family. I agree with everything Deputy Kenny and the Taoiseach have said about Larry McMahon's qualities, his commitment to public life and the fervency with which he held his views and argued his position.

I worked in the same constituency with him for a long time and I remember him as a Deputy, Senator and councillor. At that time the constituency of Dublin South-West was very different from what it is now. Larry McMahon was there from the beginning and the formation of a new community put extraordinary demands on the public representatives who were elected in and served that area. Larry McMahon never shirked his share of the workload and the people of the area owe him a great deal. I was pleased to be able to attend the funeral where their appreciation was evident.

As the Taoiseach said, Bohernabreena is a particularly beautiful part of my constituency. Bohernabreena and the area up the Dublin Mountains is a magnificent part of this county. At the time Larry McMahon started in politics there was nothing below that area because the population of Tallaght was that of a small village compared to the more than 90,000 people who live there now.

As Deputy Kenny said, Larry McMahon held strong Christian beliefs and he never departed from them in his public position on many of the social issues that were dealt with during the 1980s in particular. I might not have agreed with him on everything but I admired his trenchant conviction of the rightness of his views. He never departed from that.

I was somewhat amused by the priest who presided at the funeral. He said that at one stage he had appealed to the parishioners from the pulpit in Firhouse to vote for Larry McMahon. He said he was fearful that he would get a belt of the crozier from Drumcondra but that did not happen. It caused something of a frisson in some sections of the congregation although I was not too disturbed by it. I was a lot more disturbed when the priest went on to say that after Larry McMahon retired from politics he reverted to his old voting pattern. I doubt that it was for the Labour Party.

On my behalf and on behalf of the Labour Party, I offer our sympathies to his sister, who is in the Distinguished Visitors Gallery, and to Ronan and the rest of the clan. He was a tremendous family man, which was acknowledged in the area. I am sorry for his passing.

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