Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

This week, Ireland says goodbye to President Patrick Hillery. Here in Dáil Éireann and in County Clare, we say goodbye to Paddy Hillery, who was sent here as one of our equals. Acres of newsprint have been devoted this week to Dr. Patrick Hillery, a country doctor from County Clare who served as a Minister, a Commissioner and, for two terms, as the President of our country. In his tribute, the Taoiseach rightly listed Paddy Hillery's remarkable and extensive contributions to this country. He spoke about what Dr. Hillery achieved in the many jobs he held.

In my short tribute, I talk as Fine Gael leader about Paddy Hillery's remarkable contribution to this country. I will speak about something more basic — even essential — which is the matter of who Paddy Hillery was and what that signifies. He was a Clare man and a proud member of Fianna Fáil. He was a man of the highest integrity, the utmost probity and signal patriotism. He did not talk much about his patriotism — instead, he lived it. That patriotism was so real, ordinary and natural that one could touch it. It did not require any interpretation or explanation. It was there in every choice, word and action of a long and distinguished public life that was, at the same time, ordinary and unassuming. Paddy Hillery's plain and flaming patriotism made him an exemplary man, politician and servant of Ireland and the Irish people.

The Roman philosopher Seneca, who died on the same date as Paddy Hillery, albeit a couple of millennia earlier, wrote "Be silent as to services you have rendered, but speak of favours you have received". Paddy Hillery was silent — stony silent — about the enormous service he did this State, but those of us who knew him could not keep him quiet about the favours he received in the form of the joy, satisfaction and peace of mind he received in return.

An old neighbour of Paddy Hillery summed it up on television this week when, in tears, she spoke of the Commissioner and President as "Dr. Paddy", who delivered some of her siblings. She spoke about the time Paddy Hillery came down the wooden stairs of the farmhouse in which she grew up to deliver the best news of all — the arrival of a new life. As she put it: "who better to deliver it and who better to announce it". It should be noted that, along with his late father Michael, who was a commandant in the Free State Army, and his sister Eleanor, Paddy Hillery pioneered home births throughout west Clare.

When news of Paddy Hillery's death broke at the weekend, the former President, Mary Robinson, spoke on the radio of how kind and warm he was to her and her husband Nick when she won the presidential election in 1990. She said she was invited to Áras an Uachtaráin to get a feel for the house. She listened to him telling his stories. She said something that many of us here could echo when she said that she and Nick would often make a beeline for Paddy at any event they attended. They were regaled by his stories, which were always told in a crackly Clare voice and filled with fun and great wit. They were never at anybody's expense, except his own. That alone is a measure of this decent man.

Paddy Hillery often spoke about the Spanish armada, which gave his home, Spanish Point, its name. History teaches us that the armada exasperated the English for a while with its tight and unrelenting advance on the shore until one night the English sent in a few huge and terrifying fireships to panic the Spanish and ultimately rout them. In his own way, Paddy Hillery learned well the lesson of those fireships. When political elements launched their fireships against him in the form of whispering campaigns there was neither panic nor terror. He held his dignity, nerve and honour against them and against the odds. He was a quiet man but a man with necessary steel, which was exemplified in the quiet, unassuming Clare way that was his hallmark.

This week, I saw comments that Paddy Hillery was Fianna Fáil royalty. I do not fully agree with this. For someone of his character, royalty might have implied too much entitlement. In any case, the celebrity attached to royalty these days would not have sat well with this ordinary Clareman. I prefer to see Paddy Hillery as political nobility, which he personified with flawless integrity, extraordinary empathy, the utmost probity, impeccable standards and, as a consequence, impeccable standing. What we must remember in paying this short tribute to him today is that these remarkable qualities were never qualified because they were always, absolutely and truly his own. These were conviction and not convention, principle and not pragmatism and loyalty to the country and his people before all else.

He lived his public life bound not by any political or party obligation but by moral and national obligation. We saw the clearly distinguished yet personally difficult moves when he first went to the EU Commission, as the Taoiseach pointed out, and then to Áras an Uachtaráin for two terms. He knew these moves would be, and were, at great personal and political cost to himself. Much later, we saw this true patriotism clearly in the events surrounding the collapse of the Fitzgerald Government in 1982. I remember standing at the top of the stairs with all of the tension of that evening and subsequently. Paddy Hillery was clear in his view on what he should not do.

Many people in Ireland and in Fianna Fáil would state he put his principles and his patriotism before any personal ambition he might have had, to the degree that he could never have become leader of Fianna Fáil, and therefore Taoiseach, following that other great gentleman to whom tribute was paid in the past, Munsterman Jack Lynch. Paddy's fellow kindred Clare spirit, the poet and philosopher John O'Donohue, stated one of the worst offences and injustices is what he called "the life unlived". This is the unlived life, the shadow life of infinite possibility. It is the one we did not choose so it follows us and shadows us always. In a profound way, Paddy Hillery's patriotic choices gave Fianna Fáil a life unlived.

Many, including within Fianna Fáil, believe the party might possibly have had a richer, better and prouder life if led by Paddy Hillery than the life it had when led by others, but this was not to be. In many ways, this is because it would have benefited who Paddy Hillery was, a man of high honour, a man of ideas and a true patriot as opposed to having to constantly bend and comfort itself as to the "what", the limiting, permissive "what" of sheer pragmatism and party loyalty. He would never and did never masquerade pragmatism as principle.

Tomorrow, Paddy Hillery will be buried in St. Fintan's Cemetery in Sutton beside his daughter, Vivienne.

It is the feast day of St. Benedict and of Pope Benedict XVI whose stated mission is to evangelise Europe, that same Europe Paddy Hillery served so well and in which he believed so personally and passionately. It is a testament to his connection with the people that over four fifths of the electorate voted for EC accession on his say so and that of many others because he engaged them and engaged with them and brought Europe to their door in a way in which they believed. That is a salutary lesson for all party colleagues with another crucial vote on the way.

Today I offer the Taoiseach, the Fianna Fáil Party, his wife Maeve and their son John the deepest sympathy of the Fine Gael Party and all its supporters. We mourn a colleague, friend and a President but his wife Maeve and son John miss a man who loved family life, with a sureness and an emptiness which takes their breath away. Thank you Paddy Hillery and God bless you and may the fairways in the sky be broad and open.

Let me give my three personal reflections on Paddy Hillery. I came in here as a student like a lot of other sons and daughters of those who might have served here. On the morning after the all night debate on the great arms issue in 1970, I met Paddy Hillery, Frank Taylor and Sylvie Barrett, who are all gone, just outside where the old post office was. Paddy Hillery, the future President, knew who I was and said "There is big stuff going on here today".

With no disrespect to all of the incumbents of the Presidency — we admire immensely the job they do — many years after he left Áras an Uachtaráin he said to me over a cup of coffee in Ballyconnelly one windy evening "Do you know, I was up there for 14 years cutting tapes and planting trees and they never knew I was in the place".

I was honoured once to be the captain of the Oireachtas golf society. The family of the late Joe Brennan — he had discovered some sort of cup in the bowels of his House and revived the golf competition — asked on the tenth anniversary of his death that we might bring the competition to Donegal Golf Club at Murvagh. We did so around Easter time and as I stood on the first tee with Paddy Hillery in a shower hailstones under the same umbrella, I wished him luck in his game. He won that competition not because he was with me but because of his skill as a golfer.

The following morning I went to Magee's shop and was making arrangements for Mr. Temple to supply the Oireachtas golf team with proper outfits to go play the Brits. The first prize in the competition the day before was a Magee suit. When I went into Magee's in Donegal there was Paddy Hillery and his wife Maeve parading up and down in various cuts of tweed suits. When the final selection was made he said "God Maeve wait until the Chinese see this, they will be blown out of it with envy".

So in the Pro-Cathedral today and all across Clare and Ireland until we meet again slán, a chara, gasúr, mac léinn, dochtúir, fear céile, Teachta Dála, Aire Rialtais, Coimisinéir Eorpach agus Uachtarán na hÉireann. Tá turas amháin thart agus tá súil agam gur ar lámh dheis Dé a bheidh tú as seo amach go síoraí.

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