Tipperary council meeting adjourned for five minutes in tribute to the late John Bruton

Tipperary County Council's elected members observed a minute of silence and adjourned their February meeting for five minutes as a mark of respect to the family of former Taoiseach John Bruton whose funeral took place last weekend.

A vote was sympathy was passed at the start of the meeting to the family of the former Fine Gael leader, who served as Taoiseach between 1994 and 1997.

It was proposed by Cllr Noel Coonan, a former Fine Gael TD for North Tipperary, who in a touching tribute, described Mr Bruton as an “extraordinarily honest and decent man”.

While John Bruton was considered by many as a conservative, Cllr Coonan noted he was always conscious of a changing Ireland and he moved with it and brought people along with him. He pointed, in particular, to the legislative changes he spearheaded in relation to contraception and divorce.

He described John Bruton as a Christian Democrat at heart, who had strong convictions but was not afraid to take on board issues of great concern to the general public.

Cllr Coonan also praised his former party leader's passion for Europe and Ireland's involvement in the EU and how he reached out to Unionists in Northern Ireland in order to progress the Peace Process. He was a nationalist at heart who believed independence should be achieved solely by constitutional and peaceful means. 

Cllr Coonan concluded his tribute with the words: “There is an awful lot of good people in Ireland but John Bruton was perhaps the best of them all.”