US:THE TAOISEACH has written to Senator Edward Kennedy wishing him well on behalf of the Government after doctors said yesterday that the 76-year-old senator was suffering from a malignant brain tumour.
Mr Kennedy's doctors said the tumour caused the seizure last Saturday that saw him taken to hospital in Boston.
"He has had no further seizures, remains in good overall condition, and is up and walking around the hospital," the doctors said.
"The usual course of treatment includes combinations of various forms of radiation and chemotherapy. Decisions regarding the best course of treatment for Senator Kennedy will be determined after further testing and analysis."
The doctors found a malignant glioma in the left parietal lobe of Mr Kennedy's brain but his prospects of recovery will depend on further analysis of the tumour and the extent to which it has advanced.
Patients typically survive for between one and five years following such a diagnosis, depending on the type of tumour.
President Bush said he was "deeply saddened" by the news.
Republican presumptive presidential nominee John McCain paid tribute to Mr Kennedy as a legislator. "We hope and pray his doctors will be able to effectively treat his condition and that he will experience a full recovery.
"I have described Ted Kennedy as the last lion in the Senate, and I have held that view because he remains the single most effective member of the Senate," Mr McCain said.
Barack Obama, whose presidential campaign Mr Kennedy supports, described the news as heartbreaking.
"You can argue I would not be sitting here as a presidential candidate had it not been for some of the battles that Ted Kennedy has fought," he said.
Several senators had tears in their eyes while talking to reporters yesterday. West Virginia senator Robert Byrd wept in the Senate chamber. "Ted, Ted, my dear friend I love you and I miss you," he said.
Elected in 1962 to the seat vacated when his brother, John F Kennedy, became president a year earlier, Mr Kennedy is the second-longest serving member of the senate. He was re-elected in 2006 and is not up for election again until 2012. If he fails to serve his full term, a special election will be held to fill the Massachusetts seat.
The Irish Ambassador to the US, Michael Collins, contacted the Kennedy family when news of Sen Kennedy's illness broke last weekend, said a spokesman.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said he had learnt of the news with "shock and sadness" and sent the senator his best wishes for the course of treatment to come. - (Additional reporting Mark Hennessy, Reuters)
