Droning on like a monsignor on a bad line from Medjugorje. That was how Pat Rabbitte, Democratic Left TD for Dublin South West, memorably characterised the sombre Dail persona adopted by Michael Smith after he was appointed as Minister for the Environment in 1992.
It was a colourful phrase which accurately described Mr Smith's relentless monotone in reading scripts into the record or pre-prepared replies to questions tabled by opposition TDs. "He looked and sounded like a member of Brezhnev's politburo," Mr Rabbitte said yesterday.
For environmentalists, however, Michael Smith came as a welcome relief after more than three years of Padraig Flynn. Whereas Mr Flynn, the unreconstructed national schoolteacher, was inclined to lecture everyone from a lofty height, Mr Smith was at least prepared to listen to what they had to say.
Not that he would necessarily act on their advice. He was a loyal spokesman for the Department of the Environment, espousing such projects as the Mutton Island sewerage plant in Galway Bay and the establishment of regional authorities with no authority - to mention just two items on the Department's agenda.
In May 1993, he left himself open to widespread criticism for the terms under which the EU directive guaranteeing freedom of access to environmental information was brought into force in Ireland. The regulations he made, drafted by his Department, almost amounted to a charter for continued secrecy.
He also won few friends for championing of a national hazardous waste incinerator, announced out of the blue at a conference in Cork. Later, however, he changed his mind about the need for such a facility, in response to representations made by Greenpeace and other groups.
Unlike his ebullient predecessor, who employed an outside PR agency to churn out press releases daily in "Flynn-speak", Mr Smith kept a lower profile, relying exclusively on his Department's press office. Thus, when he did make a dramatic statement, it came as something of a shock.
The most dramatic was his announcement in November 1992 that the Government had decided to scrap Dublin's proposed Eastern Bypass motorway. This took everyone by surprise, not least the Dublin Transportation Initiative's consultative panel which had spent that morning debating the issue.
In 1993, he angered many members of his own party by denouncing the land rezoning activities of Dublin County Council, then in full swing, describing the zoning process in Co Dublin as a "debased currency" and saying that the councillors were showing "a frightening degree of irresponsibility".
But he did nothing to stop it. Instead of using the power available to him under the 1963 Planning Act to call in the council's development plan for review, he was persuaded by senior officials of his Department that the mere exercise of this still-unused power could open the floodgates.
In February 1994, just a month after new local authorities were established to take over from Dublin County Council, Mr Smith was threatening to abolish two of them - Fingal and South Dublin - because of their refusal to adopt estimates including water rates. The councils ultimately caved in.
He also stood his ground against an outcry from the licensed trade and others over legislation which attempted to curb the problem of drunk-driving by reducing blood alcohol limits by 20 milligrams. In the end, however, this hot potato landed on the desk of his Labour successor, Brendan Howlin.
One of Mr Smith's major achievements as a "modest man with millions to spend", as one of his officials described him, was to consolidate the planning regulations - including the introduction of a requirement for on-site notices of planning applications as well as the usual newspaper advertisements.
In May 1994, in response to reports that property developers were contributing to Fianna Fail in the expectation of securing urban renewal tax incentives, he said anyone who was doing this "would be ruled out of contention altogether". Any such relationship with party funding "must not exist", he declared.
When that government collapsed in November 1994 over the Brendan Smyth affair, Mr Smith on his last day in office decided to grant urban renewal designation to a site known as Golden Island on the Shannon flood-plain in Athlone. It is now being developed for a shopping centre.
He also played a role in the Masri passports affair, acting as a conduit or postman in communicating their application to the Department of Justice. He said he was unaware that the Masri family were planning to invest in C&D Foods, the pet food company owned by the then Taoiseach, Mr Albert Reynolds.
Mr Smith steadfastly stood by Mr Reynolds, who had been a friend and confidant for many years, through the turmoil of the government's collapse. Much earlier, at Mr Reynolds's request, he had played an unsung role as a go-between in the Northern Ireland peace process before the first IRA ceasefire.
He was first elected to the Dail in 1969 for the see-saw constituency of Tipperary North, but lost his seat in 1973, won it back in 1977 and lost it again in 1982, finally regaining it in 1987. Most recently, he served as Minister of State for Science and Technology.