Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I will conclude by taking issue, in a marginal way, with a line that appeared in the Taoiseach's speech, in which he described himself as "an Irish Nationalist in the republican tradition". I think he is selling himself short. I see him as a republican in the true and purest sense — a Tone republican with a vision of Catholic, Protestant and dissenter together in a country with a fair and equal society. That is how I have seen the Taoiseach in the years in which I have known him. It is for that I pay tribute to him today. Go n-éirí leat — I wish you well.