T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris has paid tribute to former Fine Gael minister for justice Paddy Cooney following his death at the age of 94.<\/p>\n
He served as a minister in the cabinets of Liam Cosgrave and Garrett Fitzgerald.<\/p>\n
He held several cabinet roles in the 1970s and 1980s, serving as Minister for Education, Minister for Defence, Minister for Transport, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and Minister for Justice.<\/p>\n
Mr Cooney also served as a TD, MEP and senator for Fine Gael.<\/p>\n
Mr Harris said he was “deeply saddened” to learn of Mr Cooney’s passing, adding that he gave “decades of service both to this country and the Fine Gael party”.<\/p>\n
“Paddy was a man of tremendous integrity; someone who possessed a genuine passion for politics and working to improve the lives of his constituents of Longford-Westmeath,” said Mr Harris.<\/p>\n
The T\u00e1naiste said Mr Cooney will be remembered “not only for his contributions to public life, but for his courtesy, his decency and the respect he showed to all who worked with him”.<\/p>\n
“On behalf of Fine Gael, I want to extend my heartfelt sympathies to Paddy’s family, in particular sons Mark, Michael, Edward and daughter Catherine, as well as his wide circle of friends,” added Mr Harris.<\/p>\n
Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke said he was profoundly sad to hear of Mr Cooney’s passing, describing him as someone who had a long and distinguished career.<\/p>\n
“He showed incredible bravery and integrity throughout his political life. I think of his role during the 1973-1977 Government, when as minister for justice, he defended the institutions of the State when they were under significant threat from subversives.<\/p>\n
“He was a true role model to me growing up, embodying the principles of public service and demonstrating what dedication and integrity can achieve in political life,” he said.<\/p>\n
Former Fine Gael minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan said Mr Cooney was the “sole surviving link to the 1973\/77 Fine Gael-Labour government”.<\/p>\n
“While he served diligently in many departments of state his time in Justice will be best remembered,” said Mr Flanagan.<\/p>\n
“He showed great leadership and courage at a time of significant challenge when the institutions of State were under threat of subversion at the hands of the Provisional IRA.<\/p>\n
“He introduced the Criminal Justice Act of 1976 extending powers of garda\u00ed to deal with the threat of terrorism in the non-jury Special Criminal Court.<\/p>\n
“Pat Cooney was a true patriot who served the state with distinction. May he rest in peace.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris has paid tribute to former Fine Gael minister for justice Paddy Cooney following his death…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-178731","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}