Emer Currie (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to pass my condolences on to the entire Bruton family: Finola, Matthew, Juliana, Emily, Mary-Elizabeth, our wonderful colleague Richard, and his and John's sister Mary. I am really so sad about losing John because he has gone too early at 76. John was the kind of man who would continue to contribute at any age and he is a huge loss to the party. John was hugely generous both in stature and in spirit and there was nothing like that feeling when he recognised you, singled you out, and greeted you with so much warmth. There was also the generosity of his intellect and his time. When we were kids, we would have to sit through a lot of political engagements, some of them lengthy, and one of the things that amused us was when John would invariably laugh at a public event he was doing. We would get the giggles and it would pass from me to my brother, to my other brother - whoever was there - on to my mum and then the elbows would come back in the opposite direction to tell us to stop. I experienced that generosity when I was in my 20s and my dad thought it was a great idea while I was in New York to look John up because he was obviously based in the States as the US ambassador. I just dropped in to his office and he made me feel so welcome and after that he would send me messages through Linkedin to stay in contact. Nearly every year on our work anniversary, he would send me a note to check in to see how I was and then when I arrived in the Oireachtas, he used my official email address.It is one of those moments I am so grateful for and the advice that then followed.

I admire the fact that he was a brave and individual thinker who was not afraid to share those views. We need more of that, as others have said. Whatever he did was always underpinned by his values. Integrity is the word of the day as far as I am concerned. I looked at my father's book yesterday and that is what he said; the reason he supported him at every step was because of his integrity. He was incredibly resilient. In such a long career he was able to take the knocks and bounce back, and thank God he did. But he was also utterly committed to reconciliation on this island. Even up until December 2022 when he contributed to the Good Friday Agreement committee's looking back at the architects of the Good Friday Agreement. We interviewed him and thank God that we did because we now have a 28-page statement on the record. Even then, his primary concern was reconciliation between two opposing philosophies and traditions on this island.

He had so many portfolios over the years. He was so young when he got into politics. Others have spoken of his contribution to our economic destiny and how its roots lay with John. He was such a great Taoiseach. Those three years of the rainbow coalition set the path for how coalition politics, compromise politics and centrist politics, can be done well. Rather than talk about VAT on children's shoes, I would like to remember the fact that he appointed my dad as the first Minister of State for children. That was ground breaking at the time. People will remember what a dark period it was in terms of children's abuse, collusion and corruption. That was a very important political move to put children and their rights at the centre of these Houses and that work continues.

He was progressive, as others have said, but it is his contribution to Northern Ireland that I will remember most. He was unequivocal in his condemnation of violence. In that way, he met a kindred spirit in my own father. What he did in bringing forward the Downing Street Declaration to the Framework Documents was an incredibly important move. The twin-track approach which he led was incredibly important because we had reached a stalemate where they were trying to balance the gun and people who were coming into talks without a gun. He managed to progress that. He was the person who progressed the international body that ended up with the Mitchell principles. It was George Mitchell and the work he did that helped move things forward. He really persuaded John Major to take that step and we have to be hugely grateful for it. It is often overlooked but it was a major diplomatic breakthrough.

I am very proud of the fact that I am part of a party that is a broad church of thinkers. To me, that is the sign of a healthy democratic party that we have different views of things. It makes us stronger. John made us stronger. The debates we all had, and have, make us stronger. It has been said over the last couple of days that he was a true patriot. That is what I want to finish on. He was a true patriot and that work of reconciliation will continue.