Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Believe me, there will be plenty of time to talk about what they do. Tonight I want to talk about a colleague I work with in the Department of Foreign Affairs, a person who has more integrity than most of them will ever know or understand and who does more to serve this country in a day or a week than most of them have ever done. Indeed, most of them have a good track record in damaging our country.

It is a critical time and some of them might wish in a few weeks or months if, God forbid, the motion was to succeed, that they had him there with his skills, integrity and judgment. He brings all those things to his role as the Minister for Foreign Affairs and has exemplified that in his delivery on Brexit and his work on the UN Security Council. He has exemplified all the things we like and admire in people in public life in this country in his decades of public service. To see people who do not really understand what public service is wanting to pull him down is a disgrace.

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