Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

As the senior Deputy for Dublin South-East, I wish to extend first and foremost my sympathy to the family and the Fine Gael Party, and to tell the House that I first met Dr. Garret FitzGerald in the 1960s when he was a junior lecturer in the economic section and I was a probably fairly obnoxious architectural student in UCD. The first occupation of a university on this island took place in UCD on the grounds of the pursuit of excellence in that we were dissatisfied with the academic standards for which we had paid and the instruction which we were receiving. We confronted the university authorities with the inadequacy of their own institution and he supported us in that particular struggle even though one of his family was intimately involved in the other side.

As was said, Dr. Garret FitzGerald was an intellectual, a politician, a feminist, a liberal, a European and an Irishman and it was my privilege to have served in government with him, as I did with the Ceann Comhairle and other members of this Cabinet. I loved him dearly and I regret his passing.

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