Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I am privileged to be able to say I think Seán O'Leary would have been a friend of mine. He was the sort of friend one would like to have, which meant that sometimes he was one's greatest ally and sometimes when he felt that one deserved to be told something else, he was well able to say it in language that was not equivocal. One would never be under any illusion when Seán O'Leary disagreed with one because it would not be couched in equivocations or hints. He used language that was very blunt.

As Senator Ross said, he took a very courageous position on the Criminal Justice Bill 1983, a position which was motivated entirely by conviction. There were no pluses in it on a personal or political level for Seán O'Leary. It was an issue in which he believed strongly and therefore he took the position.

He was all set to take a similar position on the national lottery at a later stage because he believed it was a profoundly wrong concept. This was a view I shared with perhaps less passion. The House was so enthusiastic on that issue we could not muster the numbers to call a vote and therefore he was spared the indignity of being expelled from Fine Gael for a second time. The then Minister of State, who is now a senior member of the Fine Gael Front Bench will remember for a long time the interrogation he got about the ins and outs of the national lottery from a man from his own benches who was both a formidable politician and lawyer.