It is my sad responsibility to lead the House in tribute to the memory of one of its most outstanding Members in recent times, the late Paddy Donegan. He was a man who truly fitted the description of being larger than life. He was a person of immense enthusiasm for life, his friends, sport and politics. This enthusiasm was infectious. The character of Paddy Donegan in terms of his political commitment is best etched in my memory by the fact that, although he was extremely ill, he attended with his wife and his full-time nurse the most recent Fine Gael Ard Fheis to show that he was still as interested in politics as ever.
As the priests who spoke so eloquently at his removal and funeral reminded us, the great trial of Paddy Donegan's declining years was that for a man who had so much to say and so much inside him that he wished to communicate, he was deprived of the gift of speech. This was a terrible cross for him and his family to bear. On behalf of all Paddy Donegan's friends and many admirers on all sides of the House, I wish to say how much we appreciate and express our thanks for the devotion his wife Olivia showed to him over the past very difficult and long years of his debilitating illness. While he was physically ill, undoubtedly an illness of a psychological nature was also suffered by his family because they loved him so much and hated to see him in such a way.
However, it would be wrong to look back on Paddy Donegan solely in sad terms. It is sad that he is gone from us, but his memory is vivid in our minds and will remain so for all who knew him. I first came in contact with Paddy Donegan when I was a student and he attended a meeting of the agricultural science society in UCD where he was speaking along with Sir Phelim O'Neill, who was then the Minister for Agriculture in Stormont. Paddy Donegan was an ardent Nationalist – his name was Patrick Sarsfield Donegan in memory of a man he greatly admired – and he would have described himself before all else as a Jacobite.
However, the fact that this Jacobite could share a platform so comfortably in UCD with Sir Phelim O'Neill, a distinguished Unionist notwithstanding his Gaelic ancestry, showed the largeness of the spirit of the man. Paddy Donegan had the ability to reach across the big divide between Unionists and Nationalists on this island. While he was a Nationalist, Unionists felt an affection for him almost without equal on this side of the Border in the political system.
I feel the loss of Paddy Donegan in a very personal way because his wife and her family, the Mackens and the Crinions, are close personal friends of mine. They are not relatives, but we are so close that it is as if we are related and I feel his loss greatly for that reason. He was, so to speak, a neighbour. He helped me with my maiden speech in the House, which was on the esoteric and irrelevant subject of the Grass Meal Bill. I remember approaching, with some timidity, the then Fine Gael spokesman on agriculture, Deputy Paddy Donegan, a distinguished figure. I had only met him rather casually, apart from that previous time I mentioned when I was a student. I told him rather timidly that I would like to speak in the debate on the Grass Meal Bill, which was being promoted by Neil Blaney, the then Minister for Agriculture. I thought he would ask me what I knew about it, which would have been a very profound and just question. However, I had decided that I had better speak about something and that it should be something sufficiently minor so that I would not appear to be over stepping the mark as a junior Deputy.
Instead of being discouraged, I could not have been more encouraged by Paddy Donegan. Not only did he say, "Of course, speak", he invited me to have a meal in his club – which he did not have to name but which was the Stephen's Green Club – with a number of people in the grass meal industry, so that I could hear exactly what he was hearing about how best to approach the Bill. That was the first occasion on which I was the recipient of his hospitality.
Paddy Donegan's hospitality was legendary. If he knew one was within 15 miles of Monasterboice, one was likely to be invited to dinner or for other forms of ancillary refreshment. He was an exceptionally generous man. I do not remember a more generous politician, in the broadest meaning of that term. He was generous both materially and psychologically.
People tend to reduce anyone's career to one episode. There is a great risk that commentators will reduce the career of Paddy Donegan to one episode. I will say a word in a moment about that episode. However, before doing so, I want to put on record that I believe – and I say this with no disrespect to the current Minister for Defence or any of his predecessors of any party – that Paddy Donegan was the best Minister for Defence we have had under our current Constitution since 1937, bar none.
No Minister for Defence loved the armed forces or advocated their cause with the same enthusiasm as Paddy Donegan did. He did so at a time of enormous peril to this State and its democratic institutions, when paramilitary organisations were engaged in unparalleled assaults on democracy. Paddy Donegan recognised that the defending line of democracy was and is our Army, which stands between us and chaos. He recognised that its morale had to be maintained and that it had to be supported. He increased the size of the Army and its equipment levels at an unprecedented pace. However, more importantly, he identified with the people in the armed forces in a fashion that made them feel he felt their pain whenever they were under threat.
It is important to remember that when approaching this one episode which the superficial may tend to pick out in two line recollections of Paddy Donegan's career, that is, the episode in Mullingar barracks when he made remarks which led to the then President vacating his office. Those remarks were made against a background where a member of the Army had been blinded in a search he was undertaking of premises where it was suspected the IRA had been hiding material. Apparently, the premises were booby-trapped, there was an explosion and the soldier was blinded.
Most cool and calculating politicians would, perhaps, stand back from that, give their speech and put that emotional experience out of their minds. They would create a Chinese wall in their minds and ensure their official response to events was not influenced by the emotional pain they might feel as a result of something like that happening. Paddy Donegan was not that sort of man. Perhaps that was a fault, but, if so, it was a very good fault to have.
He was deeply upset by what had happened. In his upset, he said things he ought not to have said and included people who deserved no criticism for doing their job as they saw fit. Paddy Donegan was not the sort of man who, in the difficult circumstances in which he was in, could allow that sort of rational calculation to influence what he said at all times. However, it is important to understand that Paddy Donegan said anything he said in a spirit of loyalty to the people for whom he was responsible in the armed services, the State and its institutions, including the President of Ireland. It is important, when looking back on his career, to put that in its proper context. I hope the House will forgive me for having spoken at such length.
Paddy Donegan was an extremely successful businessman. Many families owe a lifetime of employment to him. He was successful in the hospitality business in the Monasterboice Inn and also in the grain and other related industries in which he was involved in Drogheda. He was a successful farmer as well as a successful politician and a truly enthusiastic sportsman. He represented Ireland internationally in shooting and was actively involved in equestrian pursuits and other activities.
Paddy Donegan was a great politician and a great person. He truly leaves a void. I thank the House for affording me this opportunity to pay these inadequate words of tribute to a great friend whom I have lost.
