Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I also commend the advancement in terms of blocking child pornography and recognise the work of Senator van Turnhout.

I wish also to pay tribute and express my sadness on the passing of my friend and former lecturer, Mr. Brian Farrell, who was an inspiration to me when I was in college. He was an inspiration to many thousands of students in college. He was probably one of the brightest and most capable lecturers I had. His sense of social justice, integrity and decency is something that has lived with me all my life since then. I remember one of my first days in college when he arrived to give his lecture. The first thing he did was pick up papers that were thrown on the ground, turned around and said, "The people who have to clean this up did not have the same opportunities that you do" and "I hope that when I come in here I will not see a repeat of this".

He was also very humorous and learned a lot of humour from his students. On one occasion, when he was lecturing, he said that he did not know if former Taoiseach, Mr. Éamon de Valera, informed some of his cabinet or all of his cabinet when he called the 1933 general election. Of course, during the summer, when he was correcting exam papers, he saw a definitive statement that Mr. de Valera informed none of his cabinet that he was calling the 1933 general election. He thought this was a profound statement and he looked at the front of the exam paper to see the name Síle de Valera. He very happily gave her points for research.

He always believed in being very careful about how language was constructed, particularly when setting exam papers. At one stage, he put down a question asking the students to give an account of the various routes to the Dáil. One very clever student drew a map of a route from the RDS to Leinster House and various other ways of getting there. Of course, the student had to get full marks because his interpretation of the question was 100% correct.

In his latter years, he spent a lot of time in my home town of Ennistymon. He would come down every year for the Merriman Summer School. I spent a lot of time in his company. I learned a lot from him. His love of Ireland, County Clare, traditional music, all of the things that are good about our country, and his love of our country, was inspirational. He will be sadly missed.