Brendan Ryan (Labour)

Bhí aithne agam ar Tom Fitzpatrick agus bhí meas agam air. He was a man who seemed to be able to combine the qualities which meant one could warm to him and still have a sense of being in the presence of somebody who was worthy not just of affection but of respect. I was a new Senator and I may have been a little loud and brash but I found him a person to whom I could talk. He was interested in and accessible to new people coming in to Leinster House and he wanted to hear what they were thinking. When I arrived here first, having been familiar with Tom Fitzpatrick from observing politics from the outside, it surprised me to find that he was not only a less forbidding person than his political image, but also a very warm and sociable person. As the Leader said, people like him epitomise the very best qualities of public service. A man with the option of another career, which could have been vastly more lucrative, chose the career of politics and in the process did not make himself rich — as most politicians do not — but a figure of national significance.

As Senator Brian Hayes confirmed, he was a figure of enormous significance within his political party, which may be less appreciated by outside observers. Only on reading what has been written about him since he died have I become aware of the degree to which he was an enormously significant figure, who was taken seriously not because he could command 2,000 or 3,000 members, but because people respected the weight of his opinions, the value of his experience and the belief that he had an objectivity and a willingness to consider issues on their merits. They were the qualities that were apparent when he became Ceann Comhairle, the position with which I most associate him. He was a Ceann Comhairle of whom people spoke well, which is not always the case.

On my behalf and on behalf of the Labour Party, I wish to be associated with the words of condolence to his family. The country has lost a genuine, in the best sense of the word, public servant.