Dan Boyle (Green Party)

Séamus Brennan began his public political life as a Member of the Seanad in 1997. It is somewhat ironic that one of his last functions as Minister was to attend a debate in this House. While he had yet to announce his intentions, there were murmurings about what he might decide to do with his political future. I used the opportunity to thank him personally for his involvement, little knowing that his contribution on that day would be as valedictory as it transpired.

I remember Séamus at a number of levels. He had a disarming charm about him. I am struck by a comment made in the other House by former Deputy Joe Higgins when compared the difficulty of dealing with another politician to playing handball against a haystack. To steal that analogy, if one was playing handball with Séamus, the ball would be returned as wool because it was his nature to accept a political argument, never to react to belligerence and never to seek to deny the right of others to make an argument. These were among his greatest political strengths.

Having died at such an early age having served such a long time in public life, Séamus Brennan's political achievements will be marked in a number of ways. While he served with distinction in all the ministries he held, he will be remembered for specific achievements. As general secretary of the Fianna Fáil Party, he singularly changed the nature of political campaigning in the 1977 general election.

My recent experience with Séamus was as Opposition spokesperson in the Dáil when he was Minister for Social and Family Affairs. I found him to be co-operative and willing to listen to other arguments. More recently, when the Government was being formed and negotiations were under way on a programme for Government Séamus was always on hand to try to bring people together when voices were raised and tempers became more heated than they should have been.

My most overriding memory of that process relates not so much to the sessions that took place in Government Buildings but to our appearance on "The Week in Politics" when, after five days, negotiations had broken down. I was in a television studio in Cork and Séamus was with the main panel in the studio in Dublin. The nature of the conversation we had over the nation's airwaves clearly indicated that negotiations were resuming. Above all else, this sums up my memories of Séamus and his ability to work towards bringing matters to a conclusion and reaching a satisfactory agreement.

Séamus Brennan will be remembered in the ways I have described by those in his party, by his constituents and by me. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.