Members of the House will have learned with deep regret of the news of the sudden and unexpected death last week of Deputy Stephen Flynn, go ndéana Dia trócaire ar a anam. Deputy Flynn was present in the House on Wednesday last and his death on Thursday night came as a shock to all of us.
The late Deputy has represented the Constituency of Sligo-Leitrim in the Dáil continuously since he was first elected at the General Election in 1932. He has also served the people of County Leitrim as a member of the Leitrim County Council since 1925; he had been Chairman of that body continuously for over 25 years up to the date of his death, and he served on a number of its Committees.
Since his youth he was actively associated in the nation's struggle for freedom—in Sinn Féin, in the Volunteers and in the I.R.A. He underwent more than one period of imprisonment and participated in a hunger-strike.
Deputy Flynn was one of the quietest, kindliest and most unassuming of men. He will be sadly missed by his colleagues in the Dáil and, indeed, by all the members of the House, but he will be missed most of all by his constituents, for whose interests he worked untiringly both as a Deputy and as a member of the local bodies on which he served.
I ask you, a Cheann Comhairle, to convey to his relatives our deepest sympathy.
Members rose in their places.