Lenihan’s removal to take place this evening

BRIAN LENIHAN’S removal will take place at 6pm tonight in Dublin.

The former finance minister, who died of pancreatic cancer on Friday at the age of 52, is lying in repose from 10am at Jennings Funeral Home in Blanchardstown.

His removal will be to St Mochta’s Church in Porterstown, arriving at 6pm.

The funeral Mass will take place tomorrow morning at 11am, followed by a private burial.

It will not be a state funeral, although the Department of the Taoiseach is providing protocol assistance to the Lenihan family.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has requested that a book of condolence be opened for Mr Lenihan at Government Buildings.

The book will be available for members of the public to sign until 6pm.

Thousands of people paid their respects to Mr Lenihan over the weekend when they signed books of condolence in his constituency office in Castleknock.

Hanging on the office wall was a photo of Mr Lenihan addressing crowds at the annual Michael Collins commemoration at Béal na mBláth last year.

Mr Lenihan was the first Fianna Fáil figure to deliver an address at the commemoration.

Fianna Fáil also opened an online book of condolence. The book, on the party’s website at www.fiannafail.ie, will be printed and sent to the Lenihan family at the end of the week.

Mr Lenihan’s friend, barrister and political analyst Noel Whelan, said yesterday that the former minister had recently wished to record his political recollections of his tumultuous time in finance.

“He was conscious of the need to... get a chronology down, as it were, of the intense years that had just happened.

“It was clear to me what he was doing in reality was framing a record to leave it behind him... [But] he took a further turn a couple of weeks later.”

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said she did not know how Mr Lenihan faced up to Ireland’s economic challenges while also battling illness.

“Frankly, I don’t know, because honestly he was heroic,” she said. “On many occasions I just wondered how he was holding up, because he had lost a lot of weight.

“I knew he was going through his chemotherapy and all the rest of it, and yet he was turning up at every meeting. He was always there, he was working with his chief of staff and with us. Until the very last days (of his ministry) he was on board.”