Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

I wish to express my sympathy and that of my party on the recent death of Gordon Lambert who had been a Member for four years and had been appointed by the then Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, following the 1977 general election. He was a cultured, eminent gentleman and was kind as well. Having asked somebody to look at the debates, it is clear he contributed greatly to cultural and education matters when they were being debated. We would all know of him through Jacobs because for many years he was the head of the Jacob's Biscuit Company. He was well known in artistic circles in Dublin. I note that he left his whole collection to the Irish Museum of Modern Art when he became ill. It has great praise for Gordon Lambert and the collection he left it.

Perhaps I can be allowed make a small colloquial remembrance of him. For many years my late husband worked in Jacobs and he wrote to Gordon Lambert when I was first seeking to become a Member of the Seanad because Gordon Lambert had interviewed him for the job. One particular morning during that campaign I got a telephone call and Gordon Lambert, who had just been into the offices of the Seanad and cast his vote, said, "I do not know what other votes you are going to get, Mary, but this morning you got a No. 1 vote on the cultural and educational panel". As the House can imagine he was a very kind man.