Alex White (Labour)

On behalf of the Labour Party, I join others in paying tribute to the late Joe Doyle, a former Deputy and Senator. I note the presence of members of his family. I convey my sympathy to the Fine Gael Party on the loss of a truly great representative. He was a local representative, a Member of the Oireachtas and Lord Mayor of Dublin.

As I am a latecomer to this business, I did not know Joe as a politician. However, I knew him in a previous life when I worked in RTE and have two memories of him. He gave an interview on the subject of epilepsy - it may have been one of the first key interviews he gave. If I am not mistaken, he took part in a lengthy interview with Gay Byrne. I am not sure if I was involved in programme, but as others have said, it was a groundbreaking interview in which he spoke about and helped to demystify the subject of epilepsy. He is owed a huge debt in that regard.

The second memory of him is his involvement with a programme with which I was involved. He was closely involved in the programme but did not appear on the programme. It was the morning after his election in the general election in 1989. On one telephone line we had Garret FitzGerald and on the other line we had a certain Michael McDowell, who had just lost his seat to Joe Doyle. It was an interesting moment because in the course of the general election, Garret FitzGerald had been extraordinarily generous to Joe Doyle. He urged supporters not to vote for him but to vote for Joe Doyle, something other politicians have done with varying degrees of success. The tactic succeeded on that occasion and a former close confidant of Garret FitzGerald, Michael McDowell, lost his seat. The interview amounted to the former Taoiseach saying this was nothing personal, just business. It was a wonderful moment.

Joe Doyle was an extraordinary gentlemen. That was my lasting memory on the one or two occasions I met him. He was a real Dubliner with a great sense of the city and where he was from. Joe Doyle will feature when we look back on the past 30 years of change. Regarding the debate on contraception and divorce, he took a very strong position. One quotation from him resonates today with regard to the debate we have had in this House over the past ten days. He appealed for generosity from those would never want a divorce towards those who were not so lucky because "life is difficult and stubborn and does not work out as people planned". That is an extraordinarily generous statement about politics and what politics is about. We can have convictions and consciences but the greater calling and demand of politics and democracy is that we have a country that is a warm place for all its citizens. His contribution to public life went a long way with others to ensure Ireland became a warmer place for many people.