For practically all my adult life, Enda Kenny has been one of the constants on the political scene. Last month, when I shared a platform with him at a public meeting, I wrote that he seemed tired and in conversation with him, he remarked that “there is a time to go”. So I wasn’t surprised when last Wednesday, he decided to call it a day.

It was Shakespeare who commented that “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” It would be unfair if that was the case with Enda Kenny.

Of course he had his faults but his legacy should not be swept under the carpet as we look at the rivalry to succeed him.

The core test has to be – does he hand on the country in a better state than he found it? On an economic level, the answer has to be an unequivocal yes. On the UN development index, Ireland now ranks sixth in the world. The index takes into account GDP per head, education, life expectancy as well as a social equality measure.

We have over two million people at work – it’s not that long ago that there were little over one million. It’s no wonder there is a housing shortage in areas where employment growth is strongest. Of course, there are always economic threats on the horizon, with Brexit being the prime example, but as ever, for small, open economies, there are others.

On the political front, when we consider how our place in Europe and our relationship with the US, China and a host of important trading partners of various types, we have steered a steady course of non-confrontation while maintaining our own principles. Enda Kenny leaves the political stage with an extraordinarily strong, formal acknowledgement from all EU leaders of Ireland’s special difficulties in coping with the UK leaving the EU and acceptance that if the people of Northern Ireland vote at some future stage to join the Republic, they will automatically become members of the EU. How short memories are as this achievement is belittled. I remember how Margaret Thatcher objected to German reunification and how the then Chancellor Helmut Kohl came on a particularly symbolic visit to Ireland on Germany’s National Day to show his support for Ireland in return for Ireland’s support for him at a crucial stage.

While Enda Kenny had a share of hyperbole in his stories and did not forgive the breaking of the party whip easily, he was constant in his quest for the betterment of Ireland rather than the pursuit of personal wealth. He has done us all a real service.