David Norris (Independent)

Although Senator O'Toole has spoken on behalf of the Independent group, I request that I be allowed to speak because I am essentially from the same parish as the late Joe Doyle. I spent my childhood and young manhood in Dublin 4. I was an Anglican and Joe a Roman Catholic. He was very heavily involved in the Sacred Heart Church, which many of my neighbours attended. I went every week to St. Mary's Church at the junction of Anglesea Road and Simmonscourt Road when I was not singing in the choir at St. Bartholomew's Church. We shared that Dublin 4 background.

Joe was a very interesting person in the sense that he understood Dublin 4, a much misunderstood region of Dublin. While it is assumed it conforms to the stereotype associated with wealthy people on Ailesbury Road and media conspiracy, Joe knew it intimately because he represented it. Dublin 4 includes areas such as Ailesbury Road, but it also includes Dodder Cottages, Pembroke Cottages, Ringsend and Irishtown. Joe represented the entire complexion of the constituency with great honour and dignity.

I knew Joe for many years. I knew him when he was a member of the city council, Lord Mayor of Dublin and in the Seanad. I knew him, liked him, respected him and honoured him. He adhered to very high standards of general and political morality. He was a great Dubliner and also sacristan at the Sacred Heart Church in Donnybrook in which I attended the funeral of Brendan Behan, whom I knew slightly. Joe had been Brendan Behan's best man at his marriage and knew Brendan and Beatrice when they lived on Anglesea Road.

As a member of the Roman Catholic Church, Joe was a deep and devout believer, but he was able to separate this very clear commitment from his commitment to politics. He was able to make the separation between church and State. When he was working in the House, voting and campaigning, he remembered the people in his constituency who did not share the entirety of the Roman Catholic theological position on various contentious political issues. I refer, in particular, to various very divisive referenda. Joe was a man of conscience. As we have heard a lot about conscience in recent weeks, I will not comment on it, but Joe had a real political conscience. Although he was a good and religious man in good standing with his church, he held the line on these contentious issues. He found that he was representing the full and complex nature of his background and constituents. For this, in particular, I honour him. I wish we had more politics of the kind Joe espoused, although I am glad to say events in recent weeks have shown these standards are widespread, at least in Seanad Éireann. Nevertheless, in those early difficult days Joe behaved very honourably and I know he was abused for adopting this position. I not only knew, liked and honoured Joe, I also respected him.