Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I am honoured and saddened to pay a warm personal tribute to the late former Deputy Joe Sherlock on behalf of the Fine Gael Party. I sympathise with Deputy Gilmore and with the young Deputy Sherlock on the loss of his father.

Joe Sherlock was a thoroughly decent man. He had a distinctive voice that one could hear in the corridors of the House long before one saw him. At every stage of his public life he was truly a servant of his people in the trade unions, on local authorities and in the Dáil and Seanad. On his retirement he gave an interview in which he said:

I have always aimed for integrity and honesty in my dealings with people. It would be great to be remembered as such. I don't want any great plaudits; just to have it said that I did my best.

That is certainly how he will be remembered in the House and in Cork East.

In his 40 years of public life, during which he travelled up and down to Dublin week after week and, like many others of his generation, attending meetings all over east and north Cork and other places in draughty halls on bad wet nights, Joe Sherlock, God rest him, had a genuine belief in what he stood for. He campaigned for issues concerning Mallow town in 1967 and, thereafter, when he was elected to the UDC. He raised the issue of Mallow hospital from the Opposition benches on many occasions, campaigned on issues relating to the sugar plant and, as the Taoiseach rightly mentioned, continually campaigned for a rents Bill. Week after week, even when his voice was not as strong as in previous years, he would ask the then Minister, Deputy Noel Ahern, when he would address the issue of a rents Bill. I notice it has slipped off the legislative programme entirely. Maybe, as a monument to Joe Sherlock, the Taoiseach might reinstate it.

We have lost a colleague in the Dáil and Seanad and I sympathise with Joe's wife Ellen, his daughter Úna and sons Joseph and Seán, who is a Member of this House. They have lost a husband, a father and a person who had the genuine respect and love of the people in his constituency. I welcome Deputy Seán Sherlock to the House. He is here on merit, by the vote of the people. I share something with him in having come into the House after the death of my own father, as did the Minister for Finance, Deputy Cowen, and many others. If I may tender some advice to him, I suggest that, at times of political difficulty, he should simply ask: "What would Joe have done about this?"

I remember canvassing as a young and naive Deputy in a Cork by-election in 1979. I arrived with my loudspeaker and all the gear to speak outside Doneraile church in the driving rain and I set up my little camp across the road from the statue of Canon Sheehan. Joe Sherlock came out of the church with a large entourage beside him, his support group for what he wanted to say. By the time he had set up his microphone most of the people had left, because of the rain. He came over to me and said: "We might as well say a few words — maybe Canon Sheehan himself might listen to us."

He was a thorough gentleman and the people of Cork East sent to this House, and to the Seanad for many years, somebody of whom Irish people can be very proud. Mar a dúirt tú Eamon, a chara, nuair a bhí sé sa Suíochán, úsáidfeadh sé beagáinín Gaeilge chun chuile Theachta a ghlaoch. Cé nár labhair sé mórán Gaeilge ina dhiadh sin, bhí an grá agus bá sin aige don teanga. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

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