Taoiseach expresses sympathy on death of judge and former Fianna Fáil TD Séamus Hughes

The death has occurred of District Court judge and former Fianna Fáil TD for Mayo Séamus F Hughes.

From a prominent business family in Westport, Co Mayo, Mr Hughes (69) was a solicitor when he was elected to the Dáil for Mayo West in the 1992 general election.

He lost his seat five years later when Mayo West was combined with Mayo East and the resulting Mayo constituency was reduced from six seats to five.

Three years later, he was appointed State solicitor for Mayo.

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He was appointed to the District Court bench in 2000. He was initially assigned to the District Court number one area in Co Donegal and later to the number nine area of Westmeath and Longford.

He was due to retire in September and had been ill for some time before his death on Tuesday.

District Court president Paul Kelly said Mr Hughes was “held in very high regard and also with great affection” by his colleagues and those with whom he worked in the areas he had served.

“He will be very sadly missed,” he said.

Mr Hughes, the third oldest in a family of 13 children, grew up in Westport and attended secondary school at St Jarlath’s College, Tuam. He was awarded a BCL degree at University College Dublin and qualified as a solicitor in 1975. He ran the Dublin City Marathon in 1984 with his seven brothers, resulting in their entry in the Guinness World Records. In 1978, he established his own solicitor’s practise, Séamus F Hughes and Company, in Westport. Two years later, he married Maria Gavigan, whom he had met while working as an assistant solicitor in Mullingar. They have four children.

He attracted some controversy while serving on the District Court bench. In 2012, the Travellers rights group Pavee Point called on him to resign over what it describes as “prehistoric” comments made by him in a case with a Traveller defendant.

Mr Hughes also came in for criticism when he remarked in another case that “social welfare is handed out like snuff at a wake”.

In a statement, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said: “I am deeply saddened at the passing of Séamus Hughes, someone who served the people of Westport with distinction as a TD and councillor.

“I knew Séamus very well, as a colleague in the Dáil, and later in his time as a District Court judge.”

“He was a very calm, measured and decent individual. A thorough gentleman. My deepest sympathies to his wife Maria and children Colin, Emmet, Sarah and Donal.”