Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will start by extending deepest sympathies on behalf of the Green Party to Finola and John's children, Juliana, Emily, Mary-Elizabeth and Matthew and especially to his brother, Richard, and sister, Mary, who are good friends of everyone in this House. It is a real loss for your family, more than anyone else. We remember, think about and pray for you today.

I first met John Bruton when I joined this Chamber in 2002. I was sitting exactly where Deputy Seán Crowe is sitting at the moment on one of those early dazed days when you come into this House. John Bruton was roughly where Deputy Shanahan is. I think he was in a white suit. He stood out. He was a big man and he spoke with the authority of a former Taoiseach. It was stunning to watch. I would look down and God almighty he was impressive.

John Gormley told me an interesting story yesterday that reflects another side of John. He said that in 1997 when John was coming out of government, there was an appointment of the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. Dinny McGinley was up from Fine Gael for Leas-Cheann Comhairle. Supposedly, a deal had been done with Trevor and John that we would vote for Dinny. Whatever happened at the last minute, an abstain button was hit, rather than the vote for Dinny. JohnBruton shot across the Chamber and up to whisper to Trevor, "there's nothing for nothing in politics". It was good lesson. It is true.

My memory of John Bruton when I think of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s is that he went through that incredible period of the heaves. I imagine smoke-filled rooms, emergency elections, emergency budgets, emergency everything and he was central to that. Critically, even though he left this House in 2004, like a lot of the Fine Gael politicians of that time, you only have to give their first names and everyone would know who I was talking about: Garret, Alan, Gay, Nora, Gemma.

They all kept with politics, even after they had retired from the House as it were, to be engaged and involved and to share their thinking. They were public figures in the best sense. He spoke that day in the white suit; he could have been a senator in a toga. It was that same sense of big thinking, of patriotism. As Deputy Michael McGrath and the Taoiseach have said, and I think Deputy Howlin will probably know this better than anyone else, that Government he led probably wrote the rule book on how to run a three-party coalition.

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