Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I extend my deepest sympathies to the Quinn family and all of the friends of the former Senator, Feargal Quinn. When he gave his last address to the House, he used one of his seanfhocail, éist le fuaim na habhann agus gheobhfaidh tú breac or listen to the sound of the river and you will get the trout. This reflected his philosophy in life, which was to listen and then to achieve. He spoke of the 17 Bills he had proposed. He succeeded in having one of the last Bills he introduced passed in his name. We should bear in mind that he is one of only six Senators who have passed a Bill while in opposition in the history of the Seanad. That tells us the level of his achievement. Although we all introduce Bills, very few Opposition Members manage to get them passed. He also pointed out that some of the Bills that he introduced were reintroduced or taken on by the Government and implemented in other forms. He did not go on about what those were but he knew that he instigated the debate on them. That, in itself, is a legacy.

Senator Higgins referred to Feargal Quinn's Bill on organ donation, which is an issue he brought to my attention and on which he was a strong advocate. He and I managed to conspire one summer to ruin everyone's holidays, including his own, such was his enthusiasm for the Bill because we found a mechanism to debate the first legislation ever introduced here on organ donation through an obscure rule of the House which required 20 signatures, of which, of course, Feargal's was the first. We got 19 other signatures before encountering a slight problem. On the day we were supposed to submit the technical letter recalling the Seanad, the Clerk of the Seanad rang me to say we had not lodged the motion and we needed two signatures. I live in County Kerry. I would not have got up to Dublin to lodge the letter by 5 p.m. so I rang around. No one answers the phone in August but Feargal Quinn answered and asked me where he should meet my staff. The staff had to go out to his house with the document, which he then signed and it was submitted on time, thus ruining, unfortunately, everybody's holidays and resulting in the recall of the Seanad. We lost the vote, by the way, on the casting vote of the Chair. We had a major debate on organ donation that August. The night before that debate, the Government, which was in a panic because of Feargal Quinn's signature and his knowledge of the process, appointed two organ donor co-ordinators because it wanted to say it had done something.