I will speak first, as the previous two speakers did, of my personal connection to and my personal relationship with the late John Bruton. In Meath, he was a neighbour of Cavan, and I knew him as a neighbour. I knew him on a social level. I was in the Seanad while he was deputy leader of the party. He visited my home in Bailieborough on a social basis. In fact, he was a guest at our wedding. He was a lovely individual on a personal level, and I want to speak to that first. He was extraordinarily good-humoured, witty and intelligent. His intelligence was legendary. Such was his intelligence that he thought on a different plane. He responded very quickly and extraordinarily. I was very friendly with one of the special advisers from his office, who I was talking to yesterday about meeting after the funeral, and I met another one of them recently at the Dublin Bay South special breakfast. He told me that the difficulty with John, when he was Taoiseach, was keeping up with his ideas, because they ran ahead of those of his staff. He told me that the staff were still trying to factor in and process his ideas when he had long moved onto another one. He said their job was not so much to advise John, as to in some way race after him. He was extraordinary on that level. That is another way I knew him personally.
His wife, Finola, was in college with me and was a wonderful fellow student. She is a lovely lady. In fact, her mother was involved with the Irish Wheelchair Association with my wife, and they were visitors to our home often in that context. Finola is a lovely lady. That brings me to the point that John was a wonderful family man. His family was everything to him. He was completely devoted to family. In the midst of his public life, family remained paramount. His love of family and his interest in them was remarkable. He would get animated talking about his family when you met him on any social occasion.
I want to turn now to John, the politician and public figure. I was very impressed by other speakers' remarks about him, coming from another perspective. He was totally devoted to public service. His commitment to public service was unambiguous. He was an extraordinary orator and his oratorical skills were legendary. He had was no competitor as a speaker other than the great James Dillon. His great friend from Roscommon who died last week, John Connor, would be in that mould too. John Bruton stood out as an orator. It was something to hear him at parliamentary party meetings.
He had absolute integrity. His word was his bond. There was no mealy-mouthedness or ambiguity. What John said, he meant and he knew. If you had a conversation with him or you were coming to petition for your constituency, for yourself or for a group of people, you left that room and conversation with an unambiguous, unequivocal answer from him. It was a "Yes" or a "No". If it was a "Yes", it was a "Yes" and if it was a "No", it was a "No".
His party slogan for one particular election was "Every Person Counts". With John Bruton, every person did count. That was one extraordinary aspect of him. Every person is extraordinary, but if he was talking to somebody who, by our definition of things was ordinary, he had the same respect for them, rapport with them and approach to them as if they were one of the great and the mighty.
That was one of his amazing attributes. I saw him in action. Like the Deputy Leader, I was in County Meath for events. She will remember that I attended many events in Meath where he was socialising and meeting people in the room. He had the same respect for the most obsequious, uncelebrated member in the back row as he had for the person who saw himself or herself as great and mighty. Every person counted for him.
John Bruton brought great dedication and creativity to every office he held. He held multiple Ministries but he was never happy to go into a Ministry, knock in the time, and come out the other end unscathed. That was not his approach. He was proactive, creative and innovative. I imagine civil servants spent a lot of time trying to restrain him because he would have been out there doing it. He did not go in and say, "I am here just to knock my time in and get through the four years." That was not his approach.
As Taoiseach, he did something that was unheard of at the time and was not expected. He led a coalition that included Democratic Left. It was assumed that party was so ideologically divergent from him that he would have difficulty leading that coalition. The expectation among the pundits was that that coalition would not last. In fact, such was his respect for others, his intellectual capacity to think outside the box, and to look at another person's point of view that he led that coalition in an excellent fashion. He kept that coalition together, which was very united under him. The parties in it worked together with great mutual respect and without mutual suspicion. That coalition was an extraordinary success. Coalitions are now the norm throughout Europe and here, but at that time they were not the norm. He was a pioneer in that sphere. That was a very important contribution to democracy. John Bruton was such a democrat. That coalition Government was an extraordinarily important contribution to the continuity of democracy not only here but abroad. It was his capacity to respect others and his intellectual breadth that delivered on that.
Following that coalition, John Bruton left the economy in robust health. During that coalition, he handled the peace process with extraordinary commitment, skill and sincerity. I remember him being in County Cavan on a tour of the constituency. He had to interrupt the tour, much to the chagrin and annoyance of many of the members there, who would not get this stuff and were very angry. He had to abandon the tour because of what could have been a crisis in the peace process. He interrupted me to say that the peace process was paramount, left the tour, and went on the phones to work on what the issue was at the time. During that time, he did something that was very important. Of course, in the context of the peace process, one has to acknowledge the great work of many but we are talking about John Bruton today. He did something very important that will have to be done as we now aspire to a united Ireland: he reached out to unionism. That was courageous and unpopular at the time. That led to him receiving a lot of unfair criticism. There was misunderstanding around it. He had to reach out to unionism because it was important he won the respect of unionists. He did that. He also held the respect of republicans through that. He navigated the peace process with extraordinary skill and talent. He respected all traditions and had that capacity to put himself in other people's shoes. He did it very well. Again, that was unexpected. As it was unexpected he would lead a coalition so effectively, it was similarly unexpected that he would be such an architect of the peace process and would continue the architecture of the peace process. He did that with extraordinary skill.
As the Leas-Chathaoirleach referenced, he was latterly EU ambassador to the US. We have all had the privilege of going to America at various points and have different connections there.
Who in this Chamber does not have many cousins and friends in America? I know anecdotally of how he made an extraordinary impact in Washington. No more than in his ministries and when he was Taoiseach, he was not in Washington for a jolly. He was creative and he promoted the EU there in a very effective way. At all times, he was a very apt ambassador for the EU, because he was a passionate European. He really believed in the European project, and he would have been very depressed and saddened by Brexit. He believed in the European project. He believed in peace, building a peaceful world and building a good economy for people and he had a real passion for Europe in that regard.
All in all, he was a great human being, a great family man and an exceptional political leader. It was an honour to know him, and you could not but be impressed by him. A person might say they diverged from his political aspirations or his political views. Of course, you will come across that, but in all my years, I have yet to meet a person who questioned his integrity, his commitment to public service and his innate human decency.
In a very special way, I want to express my sympathy to Finola. I knew her through college and met her on many occasions with him. I knew her mum and her extended family. Finola has a cousin who is married in Cavan town. She is a very lovely lady. I offer my sympathy to Finola, Matthew, Juliana, Emily, Mary-Elizabeth and, of course, to our colleague in the Oireachtas, for whom this has to be a shattering and difficult time, Deputy Richard Bruton, his wife, Mary, and the extended family. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam uasal.
