Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I too am very glad to offer my condolences to Susan and all of Peter's family on his passing. I pay tribute to him as a public representative, a Deputy and somebody I got to know quite well in my time here. I had heard about Peter Mathews before I met him. I remember receiving a telephone call before either of us was elected when I was told there was a fellow called Peter Mathews who had some really good ideas that I would like about what was going on with the banks and the bailout. I was told that many of those ideas would chime with my own. I saw him once or twice on the Vincent Browne television show. I was surprised in a way when I saw him pop up as a candidate for Fine Gael, as he was certainly not somebody who was toeing the Fine Gael line. I say this without making a partisan or political point. He was absolutely committed to putting across things as he saw them and with a particular passion about the banking crisis, the bailout and the costs he saw being inflicted on the people of the country. That fed into a particular passion about the housing crisis and the impact he saw as directly connected to the policies on the bank bailout.

Despite the fact that he came from a very different part of the political spectrum, we had many discussions and conversations. We were on the finance committee together and, as Deputy Brendan Howlin mentioned, we travelled to the Bundestag. If I remember correctly, he certainly offered to pay to travel to the Bundestag because only a limited number could travel.

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