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

I apologise to the House in advance as I will have to leave before the conclusion of the expressions of sympathy. I will attend a meeting of the trade Council in Brussels later and I have to get to the airport.

I am deeply saddened to learn of the death of Austin Currie. On behalf of the Government, the Fine Gael Party and the Dublin West constituency, I extend my sympathies to Austin's family and to my colleague and friend, Senator Emer Currie.

A pioneer of the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland, Austin was one of the outstanding politicians of his generation, exposing and highlighting discrimination against Catholics in Northern Ireland in issues like housing with the famous sit-in protest of Caledon. He helped organise one of the first civil rights marches in Northern Ireland and went on to cofound the Social Democratic and Labour Party with John Hume and Gerry Fitt.

Austin moved his political career and his family, who I got to know well, south of the Border in the 1980s when he became a Fine Gael Deputy in Dublin West, the constituency which I am currently honoured to represent. I knew Austin as my local Deputy, as a party colleague and as father to my good friend and colleague, Senator Emer Currie. I knew him as Minister of State with responsibility for children in the rainbow Government under then Taoiseach, John Bruton, and he was the first to hold that important office.

I knew Austin as a man of enormous bravery, real courage and principles. He was blessed with extensive political insight and boundless humanity. Austin fought for human rights, peace and unity on this island and he only ever did so through peaceful and democratic means. Above all, he cared about bringing peace, reconciliation and unity to this island, something he worked towards throughout his political career. He was vehemently opposed to political violence and while he and his family were subjected to it, they never contemplated resorting to it. For Austin, like John Hume, two wrongs could never make a right.

Austin is somebody who encouraged me in my early years in politics. He was somebody who I knew personally and, at the same time, he was somebody I read about in history. It was a strange experience, having a living icon as your colleague and local TD. He was somebody whom I looked up to and admired. My thoughts and those of the Fine Gael Party are with his wife, Anita, his family and his extensive circle of friends and acquaintances today. Farewell Austin. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

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