Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Rural Independent Group, regardless of our political loyalties, we all owe a debt of gratitude to Martin McGuinness and, in particular, his part in delivering the legacy of the Good Friday Agreement. A generation of young Irish people have come of age never having known the awful and terrible violence of the Northern Ireland conflict. Thanks in large part to the political and personal courage he displayed, they did not know that. I say to his family, to Sinn Féin and, in particular, to my colleague, Deputy Martin Ferris, that he was a proud Derryman from the Bogside who never forgot where he came from and who wanted to defend at all times his people, as Deputy McDonald said. He did that in a courageous way and he did everything to the best of his ability at all times. He played a political role that will be remembered forever. There are people alive today who have children who have seen adulthood, which might not have happened but for the work of Martin McGuinness and people like him over a number of years.

Everybody knows he had a great sense of humour and, on a day like this, it is right to remember something like that. Around this time last year, I was in hospital recovering from an altercation with a cow. He rang me and he wondered how I was doing. When I informed him how I was, he laughed.

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When I asked him what he was laughing at, he said, "I have just thought of something very funny; I would hate to be that cow." He was a very nice man and I will always remember him fondly. May he rest in peace. God bless him.

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