Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the Ceann Comhairle's difficulty but we got a phone call to suggest this was happening.

Ar mo shon féin agus ar son mo pháirtí, ba mhaith liom mo chomhbhrón a dhéanamh le clann Thomas Finlay. Is léir dúinn go ndearna sé an-chuid ar son an Stáit. Bhí sé dílis do mhuintir na tíre. He had a long life and achieved many great things during it. He made some fundamental judgments. One of the most significant was the Attorney General v.Hamilton in which the Supreme Court held that the confidentiality of Cabinet discussions was absolute. I know that is a principle that current members of the Cabinet hold very dear indeed. He also ruled in Attorney General v.Hamilton (No. 2) in 1993 about parliamentary privilege. It was an important ruling where the Supreme Court held that Deputies are not amenable to any legal process with regard to utterances they make in the Dáil. Some fundamental judgments were made relating to this House, the role of Cabinet and our overall Government architecture. He gave the leading judgment in the controversial X case. He worked, as the Taoiseach said, on the hepatitis C tribunal of inquiry. To sum up, he left an enduring legacy of public service and, as a Member of this House, both politically and subsequently, in developing jurisprudence, he made a remarkable contribution to Irish life and I express our sympathies to his family, particularly to the recently appointed Supreme Court judge, Mrs Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan.

See this speech in context