Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)
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On behalf of my party and on behalf of the House I wish to express my sympathy with Mrs. Gráinne Yeats and her family on the sad death of the former Senator Michael Yeats. He served in this Chamber for many years with truly great distinction, in addition to a period as Cathaoirleach, and his work here was much admired. When we talk about Michael Yeats we tend to place him within the context of both his father and grandfather but he was a man of great eminence himself. All his recent obituaries prove that fact.

He was a stalwart member of the Fianna Fáil party from his youth. When he attended secondary school, which was rather posh and maybe more suited to the other side of the House——

Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)
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The Senator should speak for herself.

Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)
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——he was teased about his republican sympathies, but he expressed them forcibly early on. He wrote a brilliant memoir entitled Cast a Cold Eye in which he explained that the prejudices of his fellow students turned him into a de Valera republican from an early age. I thought that was interesting, although I do not know what school he attended. He had a life-long commitment to Fianna Fáil.

When he had passed away, I was listening to the radio by chance and heard John Bowman's selection of extracts from the many interviews Michael Yeats had given over the years. He gave one such interview to Mike Murphy in which he was both funny and explicit about his politics.

Michael Yeats was first appointed to the Seanad in 1951 by Éamon de Valera, and was subsequently re-appointed by Seán Lemass and Jack Lynch — three former Taoisigh. Michael Yeats was also elected to this House at least once if not twice. He was a strong supporter of the European ideal and in the 1950s represented Ireland on the Council of Europe. He served from 1973 to 1979 as a member of the European Parliament, becoming a vice president of that assembly.

He gave dedicated and patriotic service to Fianna Fáil, Ireland and Europe. As we know, his late father, William Butler Yeats, donated many of his treasures to the National Gallery and there is currently an exhibition in the National Library marking his life. For that, the Yeats family, and Michael Yeats in particular, deserve to be much admired. He spoke about those aspects in another interview I heard played on the radio.

For years, Michael Yeats was a member of the Dalkey Fianna Fáil cumann and attended the various functions run by that body and by other cumainn in Dublin and elsewhere. I remember that when he was invited to a function in the midlands, he was so willing to attend as a committed member of the party. I know his family will be devastated by his passing. Many of us have met his daughter Síle Yeats who works in RTE. I express our deep sympathy to his family along with our thanks for all the years of service he gave to our party and to his country.

Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)
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On behalf of my Fine Gael colleagues, I join the Leader in expressing our sincere sympathy to the family of the late Senator Michael Yeats. I did not know him personally but I read about him and was aware that he was the son of the great poet and patriot, William Butler Yeats. As the Leader rightly said, Michael Yeats had his own talents and skills. His commitment to public service over a period of approximately 35 years was immense. It is always more difficult to be the son of a famous man — someone who was indelibly marked by the foundation of the State and the literary revival. His father was at the heart of all that, yet in his own life Michael Yeats made a substantial contribution to the history of this country, including parliamentary life. As the Leader said, it is particularly poignant that we would remember a former Cathaoirleach of the House because that very distinguished office within our Constitution and the House is not given to everyone who goes through this House. That he served in such a way for such a period deserves to be mentioned and honoured today.

I was interested to learn when I was researching his life that he was one of the first vice presidents of the European Parliament. At that time, before direct elections were introduced in 1979, we appointed people to the European Parliament. It was a very distinguished role. He clearly had the support and the credibility within his political party because to be not only selected as an MEP in the period before direct elections but also appointed as a vice president of the Parliament shows the standing in which he was held within his own party.

I am aware of the great contribution Senator Yeats and his family made to ensuring that many of the Yeats papers — the memorabilia and the primary source material that was connected with the poet's life — remained in this country. I understand he and his family were offered a very significant sum of money as a means of ensuring those papers would go into a private collection, probably outside this country, but he chose in the most patriotic way to offer these great papers to the National Library to ensure that Irish people in centuries to come would be able to see the work of the great poet.

It is with great regret that we offer our sympathy to his wife Gráinne, his daughtersCaitríona, Siobhán and Síle and his son, Pádraig. We will always cherish his memory and his service in this House.

David Norris (Independent)
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I would like to say a few words on behalf of the Independent Senators in memory of the late Senator Yeats. My colleague, Senator Ross, also has particular reason for wishing to say a few words and I hope he might be indulged, with the approval of the House.

Yeats is a name to conjure with. What a tribute it is to that family that the late Senator Michael Yeats emerged unscathed from the extraordinary celebrity of that family. We tend to forget that his grandfather was an internationally known painter, John B. Yeats. His father was one of the world's greatest poets, William Butler Yeats. His uncle was Jack B. Yeats. Many people have been damaged by the fact a parent achieved such a degree of international celebrity, but it is all through that family and continues. Anne Yeats is a remarkable painter, Gráinne Yeats is a musician of great talent and Síle Yeats, who we all know, works in our broadcasting service.

I have said it is a name to conjure with. Of course, that relates to the literary world. I did not know the late Senator Yeats very well but I did occasionally meet him, which is why I wanted to pay tribute to him today. I found him a man of remarkable breadth of intellect and generosity. I was asked by Professor Declan Kiberd to speak at the Yeats school in Sligo, which is a wonderful institution and long may it thrive. After many years of the school's operation, I was asked to give an iconoclastic view of Yeats from the Joyce point of view. I had great fun in doing it but I was vehemently attacked — almost physically — by an American professor who said, "Do you think it is honourable to receive an honorarium for spewing this filth out before students?" There was nothing filthy in what I had said, I was simply outlining what Joyce had to say. Michael Yeats enjoyed it all with a broad smile and indicated that he was very pleased that his father could still cause fireworks. That is the kind of spirit I really like.

I am glad Senator Brian Hayes and the Leader have both paid tribute to the generosity of the Yeats family because it is remarkable. Literary papers are a very marketable product. It is a signal of the generosity of the Yeats family that they made such munificent donations to the National Library.

I would like to tell a story on that subject. Ten or more years ago I was invited to speak at an international symposium on Joyce in Monte Carlo where one of the attendant events was an exhibition and talk on Jack B. Yeats, sponsored by the waste paper magnate Mr. Smurfit. As a result of this, Stephen Joyce, the grandson of James Joyce, made a most ill-natured and ill-judged attack on the Yeats family, chiding it for what he described as the way the family was milking the resources of the Yeats estate for financial advantage. The words "pot", "kettle" and "black" sprang into many minds in the audience. However, Michael Yeats' sister Ann was present and in a dignified way — without rebuking, attacking or mentioning Stephen, a wonderful humiliation — said that as the question had been raised, the gathering should know the arrangements made by the Yeats family were A, B, C, and D and they indicated the immense degree of the donation that had been made.

Michael Yeats was a very good Cathaoirleach of the House, but before my time. As father of the House, Senator Ross may be closer to that period although he is younger than me in years, but not in wisdom. Those of us aware of Michael Yeats's political career bear in mind that he was a strong, broad-minded, non-partisan European. Therefore, he is someone whose passing we can mourn.

The last time I saw Michael Yeats was around Christmas 2005. He floated up the street, a tall, elegant figure in a raincoat, carrying some Christmas parcels and took a rest in Leinster House. He had achieved a mature age, so his death is not a tragedy but the culmination of a life for which we should all be grateful.

Brendan Ryan (Labour)
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Professor Roy Foster is not my favourite historian, but his magnificent two-volume biography of William Butler Yeats, one and a half volumes of which I have managed to read, raised in my mind the point raised by Senator Norris. Perhaps the single greatest tribute to both William Butler Yeats and Senator Michael Yeats is that a man of such firmly rooted good sense survived extraordinary celebrity.

I did not appreciate that celebrity existed on the scale it did 100 years ago until I read Professor Foster's biography. William Butler Yeats was not just a poet, but a significant national and international celebrity, with all that carried with it. It is astonishing that Michael Yeats came from that with the breadth of vision he clearly had. I will not try to pay tribute to a man I never met, but he clearly had vision and it is clear he left a wonderful memory in Fianna Fáil. He is not just somebody about whom people are nostalgic or whom they remember in a ritual way. It is clear he had an impact on Fianna Fáil and that it had an impact on him and left him with huge loyalty to the party.

The richness of that sort of family commitment is something which culminated in extraordinary generosity in terms of the amount of the memorabilia of William Butler Yeats which has been donated to the Irish people. It will, courtesy of the National Library, be a source of wonder, entertainment and study for generations. That heritage could have been scattered to a dozen different enormously rich American universities, as has happened in other cases. It is not just a tribute to the poetry of William Butler Yeats, but to the extraordinary practical patriotism of the Yeats family. There is, of course, no doubt that former Senator Yeats was a man of considerable years, meaning that there is no sense of tragedy in his passing. However, there is a sense of history, since we are moving a generation further away from figures who formed our national consciousness. Professor Roy Foster's biography was the first time I fully appreciated, as an ignorant engineer, the degree to which a culturally separate identity was moulded at the turn of the 20th century along with the political one. There was a ferment of different ideas, people who argued with Yeats and with whom he argued, out of which emerged a very distinct sense of a separate identity for the people of this State as opposed to what was then the rest of the United Kingdom.

Michael Yeats was quite clearly a product of such a sense of different identity. It was not an exclusive one, since he was a committed European, and his father was also a man of international vision, with a great attachment to poets not only from different countries but from different parts of the world, Rabindranath Tagore being one of his great friends and heroes.

It is therefore a particularly apposite moment for Seanad Éireann to pay tribute to the late Michael Yeats. On behalf of the Labour Party, I sympathise with his family on the occasion of their considerable loss. However, I would also like to think we were celebrating the man and the family, who did so much to give this country a separate identity and then, having done so, contributed to its development and security.

John Dardis (Progressive Democrats)
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On behalf of the Progressive Democrat group, I join the Leader of the House and those of the other groups in mourning the passing of former Senator Michael Yeats. I acknowledge his contribution to Ireland and celebrate a very long and distinguished life. Members of the family have been well spoken of by others, and I will not repeat those sentiments, other than to say this. Among those things for which they were notable, something perhaps unusual at the time, was their belief that nationalism and inclusion were not mutually exclusive ideas. They felt they could embrace nationalism as part of an inclusive process, which is how nationalism should be and how I believe it was practised by both Senator Yeats and his father, in whose poetry it is evident.

Michael Yeats was a candidate in the general election of 1948 and became a Member of this House in 1951. He was a very distinguished Cathaoirleach, but the aspect on which I would like to concentrate is his contribution to the European movement, beginning with the Council of Europe. He was the first Irish speaker in the European Parliament and later, as the Leader stated, a Vice President. In times when we were less confident as a nation, that was a most singular achievement. It was also very important that Irish voices be heard in that forum and throughout Europe. It has been through people such as Senator Yeats that Irish society has advanced to this point, where we have confidence in our membership of the European Union and our place internationally. Those are part of the legacy he left us.

With regard to the papers, it is highly significant, and to the family's great credit, that the Yeats collection is with the National Library. I do not find it surprising, however, since they were patriots, and that is why they gifted it. That is another respect in which we might usefully learn from the life of the late Senator. For those reasons and the others mentioned, I mark his passing and extend our sympathy to his wife and family, as well as to his Fianna Fáil colleagues.

Eamon Scanlon (Fianna Fail)
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I echo the sentiments of all speakers and, as a Sligo person, convey my sympathy to the late Senator's wife and children on behalf of the people of the county. I had the honour of meeting Michael Yeats on several occasions, most notably when he was made a freeman of the Borough of Sligo. It was always very nice to meet the man, since he was a genuinely warm and pleasant person to talk to, and the conversation could be extremely interesting. There is no doubt he was a mine of information, and I certainly enjoyed his company each time I met him. He made a considerable contribution to the Fianna Fáil party. He was most influential in the early years of the party from the 1950s on, as Cathaoirleach and as a member of the European Parliament. I express my deepest sympathy on behalf of Sligo people to his wife, his three daughters and his son, Pádraig.

Shane Ross (Independent)
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Former Senator Yeats was extraordinarily self-effacing, a quality that is rare in this House. It is most unusual for politicians to have this quality and to survive with it intact. It is a tribute to the respect in which he was held by his fellows and the people that he survived. We could all learn a lesson from this if we were honest.

Senator Yeats was complex and full of contradictions, as a result of bearing the burden of a famous name. I suspect it was difficult for him in that he bore the name of his father without sharing his interests and passions. The book to which the Leader referred informs us of the disinterest and the tense relationship between father and son. This also told us a great deal about his father, for which we should be thankful.

The most interesting point is a political one that has been made by all sides of the House. Although he came from a particular background and was sent to St. Columba's College, a very posh school, he developed republican views early in life. His best friend at school was Mr. Brian Faulkner, who was subsequently Northern Ireland Prime Minister. That friendship was maintained throughout the difficult times both endured. Senator Yeats held strong republican views and was considered to be on the republican wing of Fianna Fáil but was tolerant of what took place north of the Border in a more intransigent atmosphere. That is a considerable tribute to him.

His generous donation to the National Library was an extraordinary gesture. He could have raised massive sums if he sold these items. He was controversial in this House for reasons of which I am not aware. When he was appointed Cathaoirleach there were two votes against him, from Senators Sheehy Skeffington and Robinson. I do not wish to redeem this on behalf of Trinity College Dublin but, on behalf of my constituents, I pay tribute to him and express sympathy with the family.

Rory Kiely (Fianna Fail)
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I wish to be associated with the tributes to Michael Yeats, who served as a Senator from August 1951 to March 1980 when he resigned to pursue his career in Europe. He also held office as Cathaoirleach from 1969 to 1973. I was elected in 1977 and had the pleasure of serving with him. I knew him quite well and he was a gentleman in every sense of the word. He was intellectual, humorous and kind. On many occasions I was entertained by his humorous and astute descriptions of campaigning strategy in Seanad elections. He was held in high regard by all parties and had a wide circle of friends across the political spectrum. I extend sincere sympathy to his wife Gráinne, Caitríona, Siobhán, Pádraig and especially to Síle who worked in Seanad Éireann for some years. I now call on Senators to pay tribute to Mr. Seán O'Leary.

Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)
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I wish to pay tribute to Mr. Seán O'Leary, a former Senator and High Court judge. He served as a Senator on two separate occasions and his passing will be mourned because he certainly died before his time. There was a number of times in a row when the Seanad sat for only six months and I served in one of those periods with Mr. O'Leary. I was always struck by his practical approach to all matters and the way he cut through humbug, palaver or whatever one might call it.

I later had occasion to observe this at first hand when I became responsible for the Department of Public Enterprise. Mr. O'Leary had been appointed by a previous Government to be the judge presiding over the Luas investigations, but the General Secretary of the Department, seeking to do the right thing, stated that he expected the new Government to have its own nomination. I indicated that I would like Mr. Seán O'Leary to continue in his post and I wrote inviting him to continue his work on the Luas investigations, which had been set up and adjourned. He replied with a brief and witty letter, stating he was surprised but honoured and that he would continue his work.

I should tell the House how wonderful he was when dealing with that investigation. He sat in his chamber, which I believe was over Heuston Station, with a secretary from the Department. When people argued that their gardens would be affected or reverberations would be felt in their houses he went to visit those houses and walked the part of the line affected. If he felt the people concerned had a case, he offered them a certain amount of money and that was then end of the matter. I did not receive a letter of complaint on the matter and neither did anyone else. He dealt with everyone with a fairness of manner and breadth of vision. I was told by a person who works in these Houses that he was seen prowling around the back of a house one night walking on the land pertaining to a complaint. The investigation team had amazing powers which he exercised fully. The result was everybody accepting his dictum. He was able to give the good and the bad story to people and had qualities of serving.

I wrote to him in thanks when the process finished and he replied with a most charming letter, stating his hope that everyone travelling on the Luas would have good and happy journeys, which has been the case. That wisdom and experience gained from the process would have served him well when he went on to the Circuit Court and High Court benches. He was a wonderful and an amazing person, being very practical, ordinary, down to earth and full of common sense. Even in the six months I served with him in the Seanad I can remember those qualities with startling quality. Hence I was able to decide very quickly who should chair the Luas investigation team.

His family must be devastated by his loss. He is survived by his wife, Mary, and children Margaret, Anne, Patrick, Mary and Catherine, as well as sisters and a brother. He did an amazing service with the valedictory papers he left behind which were written about and produced after his death. He asked that these would await his passing.

He also chaired the Residential Institutions Redress Board responsible for compensating the victims of abuse in State orphanages and I would like to think his same practicality and common sense shone through what must have been very difficult discussions on those matters. The judicial world will miss him greatly.

He gave fine service to this Chamber and on behalf of my party I express sympathy to his wife and family. I also express my gratitude for his many services to not only the Houses of the Oireachtas but also to the State.

Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)
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Unlike Senator Yeats, Seán O'Leary died before his time. Those of us who knew him from being in the heart of Fine Gael politics for more than 30 years prior to his appointment to the Bench were extremely saddened to hear of his death at Christmas. I was in The Lough Church on St. Stephen's night with other colleagues and the outpouring of love and affection for him from the legal and political communities, friends and family was there to be seen. He was truly a great man.

In recent times he thought about retiring and spending time with his children and grandchildren. However, this terrible illness occurred shortly before Christmas and he was taken from his beloved family. It is a tragic loss for the O'Leary family and everyone who knew Seán O'Leary.

I got to know him during the 1992 general election campaign. I had just left college and my first job was to work for the Fine Gael party as an alleged apparatchik. I was given a Nissan Micra and one of the extremely large mobile telephones about half the size of one's arm which existed at the time. My job was to travel around the country with our party leader and take calls from Seán O'Leary. I recall him ringing four or five times every day with his distinctive Cork city voice — which unlike the Cork county voice is shrill and to the point — asking to "get me so and so" and one got the person for him. He was very much to the point and, as the Leader stated, practical. I got to know him very well during that campaign.

Since the foundation of the party, no one in Fine Gael commanded the same respect in terms of his approach to elections and the advice he gave the party leadership and candidates. His knowledge of the system of proportional representation by single transferable vote was second to none. On election night, the person to listen to on radio was Seán O'Leary because he called it first and always got it right. He was the quintessential national handler.

It was right and proper of Dr. Garret FitzGerald, on assuming the office of Taoiseach in the early 1980s, to appoint Seán O'Leary to this House. He was not a candidate or on the way up or down. His knowledge of politics and sheer practicality required him to be a Member of this House and what a distinguished Member he was. It is worth stating that even though he was a loyal Fine Gael Member of the House during most of the 1980s, he lost the party whip when he voted against a criminal justice Bill.

Brendan Ryan (Labour)
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He did indeed.

Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)
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It shows his independence of mind. It is extremely difficult to lose the whip, particularly on the Government side, to vote against one's colleagues, to take the other position and be shunned. However, he showed that absolute independence of mind on key issues and Seán O'Leary is a model for those wanting to follow a career in politics.

One of the great parts of his life he remembered and cherished was his time as Lord Mayor of Cork in 1972. The President at that time, Éamon de Valera, had never been offered the freedom of the city of Cork. Over Christmas, I read that Seán O'Leary regarded it as a great honour that as Lord Mayor he was able to propose and see through offering the freedom of the city to Éamon de Valera.

I spoke to some of his colleagues on the night of the funeral. I was struck by the number of judges who stated not only did he deserve to be a Circuit Court judge but that he deserved to be a High Court judge and that he had the intellect to go with it. There is often a question mark over who becomes a judge in this country, but he had the respect of his colleagues right across the Bench and in all sections of the legal community.

We offer our deepest sympathy to his wife, Mary, and his children, Margaret, Anne, Patrick, Mary and Catherine. In particular, we remember in this House the passing of a great man who served Irish life, politics and the legal system in this country with such distinction all his life.

Shane Ross (Independent)
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Like the Cathaoirleach and possibly only Senators O'Rourke and Ryan, I served with Seán O'Leary for the short period he was a Member of this House in the 1980s. While I agree with Senator Brian Hayes that one of his most distinguishing characteristics was that he was unparalleled on the logistics of politics such as the minutiae of elections and constituencies and was extraordinarily beneficial to the party to which he was attached, this is not really what his lasting legacy will be. Senator Brian Hayes put his finger on it when he said that although he was a real insider in Fine Gael at the time and the quintessential national handler who was trusted with the ear of the leader and the people who mattered in Fine Gael, he stated in this House one day that he would not vote for the Criminal Justice Bill 1983. This is a very difficult thing to do. It is all right if one is a known maverick with no career left within the party, but Seán O'Leary voted against the Criminal Justice Bill and was outside the party for a period of about six months. He was out of the party and its higher councils of which he was a vital member for so long.

This was not the only evidence that he was a man of incredibly independent mind. Just before he died, he left his verdict on an amazing judgment, which was immensely courageous. In barely coded language, he criticised the Supreme Court in terms which were very courageous. He said the Supreme Court of this nation had bowed to the mob, that we needed a Supreme Court which would not take a populist view and which would not make judgments because they were popular but make unpopular judgments and that this is why the Supreme Court existed. This was the sort of obiter dictum which many people were thinking about that particular judgment but dared not say. It was characteristic and typical of Seán O'Leary that he should have put this debate into the public arena and caused a great deal of controversy but also accentuate his own independence.

For this reason, we are at a loss for his departure because we need more people who have the guts to say and do things which are unpopular in the face of colleagues who will shun them for doing so. I mourn his loss and, on behalf of the Independent Senators, express my sympathy to his family.

Brendan Ryan (Labour)
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I am privileged to be able to say I think Seán O'Leary would have been a friend of mine. He was the sort of friend one would like to have, which meant that sometimes he was one's greatest ally and sometimes when he felt that one deserved to be told something else, he was well able to say it in language that was not equivocal. One would never be under any illusion when Seán O'Leary disagreed with one because it would not be couched in equivocations or hints. He used language that was very blunt.

As Senator Ross said, he took a very courageous position on the Criminal Justice Bill 1983, a position which was motivated entirely by conviction. There were no pluses in it on a personal or political level for Seán O'Leary. It was an issue in which he believed strongly and therefore he took the position.

He was all set to take a similar position on the national lottery at a later stage because he believed it was a profoundly wrong concept. This was a view I shared with perhaps less passion. The House was so enthusiastic on that issue we could not muster the numbers to call a vote and therefore he was spared the indignity of being expelled from Fine Gael for a second time. The then Minister of State, who is now a senior member of the Fine Gael Front Bench will remember for a long time the interrogation he got about the ins and outs of the national lottery from a man from his own benches who was both a formidable politician and lawyer.

Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)
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Who was it?

Brendan Ryan (Labour)
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It was Deputy Jim O'Keeffe who suffered at the hands of a very capable and occasionally sharp tongue.

Seán O'Leary was an extraordinarily warm man with a strong sense of social justice. Injustice in politics and society annoyed him. The letter to which Senator Ross referred was a manifestation of that genuine sense of unhappiness with injustice. He correctly identified that injustice begins with injustice to those who are seen to be least deserving of sympathy and moves from there to others. That is what concerned him.

I was somewhat sorry when he was made a judge because much of the man therefore had to be concealed within the proprieties of his position. By all accounts, as the Leader has said, he was a very capable man in his judicial role. I believe he was also a very compassionate man in this role. The other wonderful side of his personality was taken from us from the public point of view, especially the extraordinary political analysis laced with considerable and wicked humour.

Above all, his early death took away from us, in a way that seems so unfair and cruel, a real and genuine human being who contributed to life, politics and his family. He was a man of humour and compassion, a consummate lawyer and, in my case, a friend. He is a significant loss to Irish life, an even more significant loss to Fine Gael and, clearly, a huge loss to his family. We, in the Labour Party, would very much like to be associated with the words of sympathy to his family. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam fíor-uasal dílis.

John Dardis (Progressive Democrats)
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On behalf of the Progressive Democrats, I am happy to join in the tributes being made to the late Seán O'Leary and to extend our sympathy to his wife, children and the Fine Gael Party on his passing. His achievements have been well documented but apart from his political expertise, which was legendary, what emerges from many of the tributes passed to him at the time of his death was the fact that he was a man of great charm and humour. They were characteristics which are also worth recording.

I was interested to read that he stood in a general election before he became a member of Cork Corporation and that he met his wife at the count in Cork in Jack Lynch's constituency. Perhaps on top of all the other reasons for not having electronic voting there is another one there in that——

Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)
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Romance.

John Dardis (Progressive Democrats)
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——romance can blossom at the long counts in cold halls around the country. The best thing I can do is read what Garret FitzGerald said in his autobiography which sums up the man very well.

The director of elections was Seán O'Leary, a Cork accountant and barrister who had himself been a Dáil candidate and whose qualities of warmth and vitality, political gut instinct, natural authority, toughness and joie de vivre, together with his excellent relationship with our national organiser, Peter Prendergast, equipped him ideally for his task.

All his characteristics are summarised in that sentence. I do not think I can add to that.

He is described in Who's Who as the eminence grise of the Fine Gael Party. That is somewhat harsh and is not fair. He was much more than that and a much more rounded character. Reference has been made to his observations about the courts and the fact that the higher courts should not be populist. There is a message there that we as well as the courts can take to heart. I wish to be associated with all the comments that have been made and to extend our sympathy.

Rory Kiely (Fianna Fail)
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I also wish to be associated with the tributes to the late Seán O'Leary who, as already stated, was nominated by the then Taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald, to be a Member of the 15th and 17th Seanad. I had the pleasure of serving with him in those Seanad. He was a great debater, being articulate and passionate. Many debates were enriched and enlivened by his contributions and the independence of his thoughts.

His political expertise with percentages and quotas was recognised by the Fine Gael Party and led to his appointment as director of elections. His untimely death is a loss to the Fine Gael Party, the Judiciary and Irish society in general. I extend my sincere sympathy to his wife, Mary, son, daughters and extended family on their sad loss.