As Members will be well aware, fuair an iar-Aire agus iar-Bhall den Seanad, Niamh Bhreathnach, bás. Members will be aware that the former Minister and Senator, Niamh Bhreathnach, has died. She was born in Loughlinstown, Dublin, in 1945. She was one of five daughters born to civil servants, Breandáin Breathnach and Lena Donnellan, from whom she inherited her deep commitment to public service.
Ms Bhreathnach was elected the first Labour Party chairwoman in 1990 and was elected a Teachta Dála for Dún Laoghaire in 1992. She was the first Labour Party politician to hold the post of Minister for Education and she has left an extraordinary legacy of educational reform. Ms Bhreathnach was responsible for the abolition of third-level undergraduate tuition fees and significant increases in education spending, the introduction of the leaving certificate applied programme, which I had the pleasure of teaching, and she made the transition year programme available to all second-level schools.
In 1997, Ms Bhreathnach was appointed and nominated by the Taoiseach in the last days of the Twentieth Seanad. Following her time in the Oireachtas she continued her dedication to public service as a member of the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.
At this sad time, may I, on my own behalf and that of all of us as Members of Seanad Éireann, wish her family every sympathy. On behalf of all of us, I wish to convey my deepest sympathies to her husband, Tom, her two children, Cliodhna and Macdara, son-in-law Bryan, grandchildren Tom and Alice, sisters Síghle, Fionnuala and Éadaoin, and her many relatives and friends, and members of the Labour Party. She was predeceased by her sister, Eibhlín. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam dílis.
