Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I would like to begin by offering my condolences and those of the Government to the family of Seán Treacy. As a member of the Labour Party and as an Independent, he served the people of Clonmel, Tipperary South and the country with great honour and distinction. I would like in particular to extend my condolences to Deputy Howlin and former Members from the Labour Party, who all knew him so well. I never had the opportunity to meet the former Ceann Comhairle but as a young man interested in politics, watching it on television, I remember being struck by Seán Treacy, a man with gravitas, dignity, authority and, of course, a booming voice. Over the course of a remarkable career, he was a Deputy for 36 years and sat in the European Parliament for three.

Across three different decades - the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s - he served as Ceann Comhairle and saw his role as putting manners on Deputies. This is never an easy job, and sometimes even taoisigh need to be reined in. The only reward for an often thankless task is that the holder of the office is constitutionally entitled to be returned automatically in the next election. In 1997, Seán Treacy decided against being automatically returned, something that was praised by my forbear as a unique and selfless act and as further evidence of how he always put the public interest before himself. In his own words, he handed down "the torch of unsullied public service to others in the hope and belief that they too will continue to uphold the best and noblest traditions of the premier county". When he stepped down in 1997, there were many tributes paid to him in this House and they were all well deserved, although with typical modesty he said he felt that he needed to kick himself just to make sure he was still alive. I am glad that he was honoured in that way in his lifetime. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

See this speech in context