The former Fianna Fáil TD and minister for foreign affairs, David Andrews, was described at his funeral on Saturday as a man of great integrity and empathy who played an integral role in the Belfast Agreement in 1998. Andrews, who died at the age of 91 on Tuesday, was a TD for Dún Laoghaire from 1965 to his retirement in 2002 and served two terms as minister for foreign affairs and was also minister for the marine and minister for defence. At the funeral mass at St John the Baptist Church in Blackrock, his son Barry Andrews, the MEP for Dublin, said it was “a source of enormous pride” for the family that David Andrews had contributed to peace on the island of Ireland, as one of the four signatories of the Belfast Agreement in 1998. Taoiseach Micheál Martin, former president Michael D Higgins and his wife Sabina, were at the mass as was Captain Paul O’Donnell, aide-de-camp to President Catherine Connolly. Former taoiseach Bertie Ahern was also among the mourners. In his eulogy, Barry said many had remarked on another of his father’s qualities: empathy. He said his father believed there was a great sense of injustice in the way that Irish prisoners were treated in British jails and had been very involved in the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four campaigns. That empathy was also evident in his constituency of Dún Laoghaire throughout his long career, including his involvement in pushing for social housing schemes in Ballybrack early in his career. Barry Andrews said former president Higgins and his father were friends for many decades and it had been a great joy for his father to be invited to Áras an Uachtaráin for lunch with the president for his 90th birthday last year. “They worked on human rights cases together for years. Michael D was the greatest human rights advocate of this generation,” he said. [ David Andrews obituary: Former Fianna Fáil minister who played role in Belfast AgreementOpens in new window ]Barry Andrews and David McSavage at the funeral of their father, former Fianna Fáil TD and minister for foreign affairs David Andrews, at St John the Baptist Church in Blackrock. Photograph: Alan Betson