Geraldine Feeney (Fianna Fail)

Senator O'Toole summed it up when he said it is with a heavy heart that we gather today. It is with huge sadness in our hearts that we are talking about our late friend and colleague, Kieran Phelan. I take my hat off to our Whip, who was able to deliver his few words without emotion, probably unlike me. I know this has been most difficult for Senator Wilson.

I would like to join others in saying that Kieran was a gentleman. The warmth of his personality, like the depth of his nature, was huge. No personality was as big as Kieran Phelan. When I looked at the Gallery, I said to Senator Ellis it is too bad he is gone because he would have had two quotas the next time.

I smile when I see the faces in the Gallery. I will only mention one of them. Kieran would have wanted this person to be mentioned. I refer to the former Senator, Michael Brennan. Michael and Kieran were the best of buddies. Like Kieran and Senator Wilson, they were peas in a pod.

Having referred to the personality and the depth of his nature, I have to turn to his family. As Senator Wilson said, he absolutely adored his mother, Delia. He was always telling us about things she said and did. His love for Mary, Fiona, Martina, Brenda, Aisling and Patrick knew no bounds. He used to say that the world was at rest on the days when things were good with his family. Nothing was wrong if the family was right.

Senator Wilson put it well when he said that Kieran was the first up on a Tuesday. I would slag him and ask if the keys were in the ignition at 10.30 a.m. on a Thursday morning. They were and he would have the engine running ready to drive out the back gate of Leinster House to Rathdowney.

As the Cathaoirleach will know, there was no prouder Laois man and Fianna Fáil man than Kieran Phelan and it would have been difficult for him to pick one over the other. When we talk about people like his mother, Mary, and the family, we are reminded of all his siblings. He loved his siblings. I would hear him on the telephone to different siblings because I had the pleasure of sharing an office with him. If there was a little tiff going on between one or other of them, he would tell them to leave it. He would not want a cross word to come between any of them and he would never have taken sides.

There was another man in his life, the Minister of State, Deputy John Moloney. If ever he watched and wanted a man to grow politically, it was the Minister of State, Deputy John Moloney. There is now another little man in his life, his little grandson. Senator O'Toole was right that it was lovely to hear the little cries and giggles from his grandson. We would slag Kieran and say himself and Moloney will be pushing the prams around Laois. He would say that by God whatever he would do, he would not push a pram. We would say to him that it would do him the world of good and get rid of some of that old condition. He would laugh at us.

I want to share a story at which the Cathaoirleach will smile. People talk about Kieran's wonderful voting record in this House, which none of us could match. I remember a day when the Cathaoirleach was Chief Whip in the last Seanad and Senators Kieran Phelan, Wilson and myself were somewhere we should not have been. We got a telephone call to say there was a vote. We had to leg it back to the House. Two of us made the vote but one man did not because he could not run quickly enough. He kept shouting to hold the door open but we could not hold the door open and it was closed. We always said that if Kieran Phelan did not have a heart attack that day, he never would have one. The Cathaoirleach will remember that he was grey in the face when he met him that day. He put his two hands up and said to the Cathaoirleach to say nothing because it would never happen again and, by God, it never did.

Kieran would never let anyone down. I was elected to the House the same time as Kieran in 2002 and, like Senator Diarmuid Wilson, we became great friends. He shared an office with former Senator and now Deputy, Timmy Dooley, and Senator Wilson, and I shared the office next door. When Senator Wilson became Chief Whip, he had to move out of my office. I told him he could only move out if he brought Phelan in. He did the deal and Kieran moved into my office and we never looked back. I had the best of laughs with Kieran Phelan and our office was like Heuston Station on an all-Ireland Sunday. It was always full of people. Now it is like a League of Ireland match on Bohola on a bad Saturday. No one ever darkens the door and I do not mind that because it is a sad and lonely place without Kieran. The time will come when the door will open again and people will start to come in.

As Senator Wilson said, 19 November was his birthday. We never said anything about his birthday last year when he was celebrating 60 years. If one does the maths, I think Senator Kieran Phelan was out on the 20 years but we will say nothing about that, although he would want one to say that. We said nothing about the birthday and after the Order of Business we went to the bar for a coffee as we always did. We had a big chocolate birthday cake which was laden down with candles. The few he would have coffee with, including the Cathaoirleach, were there. We brought the cake out with the candles lit and as he saw us coming with it, he said: "Good God, that is not for me." It was only a birthday cake but we might as well have told him he had won €1 million in the lottery because he was so made up with that birthday cake and the card. Half the cake was left and I asked him if he would bring it home to Mary and the girls. He said he did not want to go home with it and to let other people have it. I went around the bar and gave it out. I will not say to whom I gave it but he said that if he had known I was going to give it to that crowd, he would have brought it home. That is the proud man Kieran Phelan was.

I say to Mary, his mother, Fiona, Martina, Brenda, Aisling, Patrick, who cannot be with us, and to his siblings that never a day goes by when Kieran Phelan is not talked about or thought of in this House. We do not often say these words in the Chamber but Kieran Phelan was a man we loved and he will never be forgotten.