Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I rise today, as a fellow representative of Dublin West, to pay tribute to the proud and lasting legacy of Austin Currie on the island of Ireland. I acknowledge all of his family who are here today. My own fondest memory is of an afternoon he and I spent in the final days of a recent election, which Senator Doherty will remember, when we were canvassing at the same church gate. It was very much the end of the campaign, when the scramble to convince those last few undecided voters takes place. He was campaigning for his daughter, Emer, who is now a Senator and my constituency colleague in Dublin West. What was clear on that day was his special way with people. Many whom he met from all walks of life showed great respect for him, but also a lovely warmth. He matched that with his own, chatting gently with churchgoers, asking after their families and engaging with sincerity and openness. He was a gentleman in the truest sense of the word. The same man chatting gently at the church gate backed up that warmth with the real strength of conviction that came to mark him from his early political career in Tyrone through to his time in Dublin West, which has cemented him as a key architect of peace on this island. He was a man who, having tried everything else, felt so strongly about the injustice he witnessed that he had to do something. His actions in 1968 marked the starting point of the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland. It was a protest over housing that, within months, became so much more and which has echoed down the decades since. He was a man who continued to advocate for the most vulnerable in society as the first Minister of State with responsibility for children's rights and whose vision was ultimately vindicated through the Good Friday Agreement, which I closely associate with the party he helped to found. Many in this House have a decency that allows them to connect with those they represent. Others are great statespeople who implement lasting positive change. A special few are both. Austin Currie was one of those special few. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

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