Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

It is a great privilege to have amongst us the person whom history will undoubtedly judge as the greatest statesman to come out of the North of Ireland during a troubled and difficult period. His career has been the embodiment of the values of the civil rights movement — what Senator Ryan called the creative power of non-violent struggle — and he stands in the honourable tradition of The Liberator, Daniel O'Connell. He was at the centre of every creative peace initiative that has tried to resolve the conflict over the past 30 years.

Everybody regrets others were not willing to share power and responsibility with John Hume and his party and now there are difficulties sharing power on a much wider scale. I always remember one particularly potent line John Hume inserted in the Downing Street Declaration, which was roughly,

It is for those who believe in a united Ireland to persuade those who do not". However, I think the opposite is also true. It is for those who believe in the Union to persuade those who do not. I am absolutely certain that paramilitary activity will not win any converts to a united Ireland any more than loyalist paramilitary activity will win any converts to continuing with the Union.

The degree of peace we have is a great achievement. I pay tribute to John Hume's European statesmanship. I wish his enthusiasm for Europe was equally shared throughout the political spectrum in Northern Ireland.