Rónán Mullen (Independent)

I did not have the pleasure of serving in the Oireachtas with Joe, but I should like to offer a few words of tribute to him, and of sympathy to Peggy and the family, because he is a man who goes back a long way in my consciousness of politics. I was in France last year doing some work with people from the Auvergne who told me, in great excitement, that the former Irish Prime Minister had been temporarily waylaid due to a swine 'flu scare. In the course of getting in touch with Ireland as regards that, I was informed of the sad news of Joe's death. He and his former constituency colleague were united in my mind, at that moment.

One of my earliest lessons on the nature of party politics came in 1992 when then, as now, I was unaligned, but I take particular interest in certain political matters, conscience issues in particular, as Senator Norris has briefly alluded to. I believe Senator John Hanafin's father, Des, was in the middle of a Seanad campaign at the time, having taken a stance that made him temporarily unpopular within his tribe. I contacted a much loved relation of mine who had a vote in the Seanad to ask him, not on the basis of any party preference on my part but given the issues involved, whether he would consider giving a vote to Des. I then discovered that party men do not cross parties that easily, and I got half an hour on the merits and virtues of Joe Doyle. By the time he was finished I was convinced that Joe was every bit as worthy of the vote as any person running in the Seanad election. I have no doubt that he was.

He was a man of deep faith and Christianity, as well as a man of conscience. It is not easy in politics to combine those qualities, but perhaps the maxim, "In essentials unity, in non-essentials diversity, but in all things charity" can be applied to all of us, and it certainly applied to Joe on the basis of anything I ever heard about him. Christianity is as much about what one does as what one says, as we all know.

The second time I came across Joe was in happy circumstances when in a previous job I was accompanying people from the Dublin archdiocese on the 50th anniversary pilgrimage to Lourdes, which was a subject of some media interest. I had a job in the press office of the Dublin archdiocese and I accompanied a crew from "Nationwide" on that particular pilgrimage. Anyone who has ever been on that pilgrimage will know that there is a particular bar, or perhaps several, where people, including and especially the volunteers, let their hair down at night, and boy do they let it down. I will never forget the sight of Joe Doyle posters, fresh from a previous successful election, which adorned this bar, and it was not just a case of one, but several. He was on that particular pilgrimage and was very well got and popular with all the people involved. His commitment was well known, and his goodwill was without condition towards all he encountered.

I should just like to add my words in that context, to share that memory with people and to say, ar dheis Dé go raibh sé, agus suaimhneas síoraí dhó.