Kenny leads tributes to life of a 'true patriot

FORMER TAOISEACH Garret FitzGerald was a “true patriot” and an “icon of decency and honour in public life”, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said in the Dáil.

Leading tributes from all parties to the former Fine Gael leader Mr Kenny said he had “made an unparalleled contribution to public life in Ireland”.

The flags on Leinster House and adjacent Government Buildings flew at half-mast following the announcement of the former taoiseach’s death at the age of 85.

After cross-party tributes to the man who served twice as taoiseach, the House stood for a minute’s silence and the Dáil then adjourned for the day as a mark of respect.

Mr Kenny said Dr FitzGerald’s “commitment to achieving peace and reconciliation on this island and between Ireland and Britain reached its fruition this very week with the visit of Queen Elizabeth to Ireland. I know he had hoped to be present in Dublin Castle yesterday evening but his illness prevented him.” He said “his towering intellect, his enthusiasm for life and his optimism for politics will be missed by everybody, but particularly by those people in the Fine Gael party”.

Mr Kenny said “Garret was a true patriot, an icon of decency and high honour in public life whose fluency in economics was balanced by the humility, the generosity and the warmth of his personal and family life.

“A leading academic, Dr Garret FitzGerald turned his back on private wealth to have not just a career, but a lifetime commitment to public life and politics here.”

Mr Kenny, who knew the former party leader since the mid-1960s, said he had “a deep understanding of Ireland’s capacity to influence international affairs through co-operation and partnership.

“He was particularly and passionately committed to developing his country’s role in the European Union, of which he was an avowed supporter over very many years.”

Referring to his columns in The Irish Timesover a period of more than 50 years, Mr Kenny said the former taoiseach's contribution "speaks for itself in respect of the spectrum, the breadth and the quality of the analysis of Irish current affairs".

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore said Dr FitzGerald stood “in the eyes of the nation” for “integrity, for service, for a liberal and tolerant Ireland and for reconciliation between the two traditions on the island”. The Labour leader said that “at the historic gathering last night in Dublin Castle when the heads of state of these two islands met in friendship and unity, his absence was palpable for it was he, more than any other, who was the intellectual and political father on the road we have travelled together”.

Mr Gilmore said that over many decades he “relished the role described by his pseudonym used during his first connection with The Irish Times, ‘analyst’. He was a man driven to understand, to confront problems with evidence, to weigh facts and to reach conclusions.” But “his enormous sense of duty, of service to the Republic, compelled him to turn analysis into action”, and from his earliest days in public life “he was determined to address the then festering sore that was Anglo-Irish relations and the deeply troubled relationship between the two traditions on this island”.

The Labour leader described him as “a shining model of citizenship, of service to the nation, of devotion to the ideals of the Republic and to the foundations on which it stands”.

He held many offices of State in a long and distinguished career, Mr Gilmore said, including “senator, deputy, minister, chancellor of the National University of Ireland and twice holder of the office of taoiseach”.