Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Everyone is entitled to legal representation and lawyers engaged in such sensitive political cases deserve to be allowed to carry out their work without interference. I accept what was said about the cases being before the courts. However, unfortunately, in this country we know what can happen when the State tries to prevent human rights lawyers from carrying out their work. The Finucane case was mentioned earlier. Another case is that of Rosemary Nelson, whom I also knew, who was murdered by loyalist gangs in collusion with British state agents. There is a question mark over what happened in that case and when the state attempts to frustrate the justice system. Given the history of the Irish peace process, is there anything the State can do to kick-start, promote or nurture the process? We know from our history that there were difficulties with what we described as securocrats within the system who did not want the peace process to develop and bloom. Perhaps I am taking the arrests out of context, but there seem to be parallels between what is happening in Spain and what happened in the North. There are similarities between the groups attacking Basque separatists, for example, Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberatión, GAL, which assassinated people on behalf of the Spanish state during the conflict. There seems to such elements involved. Is there anything we can do to assist the peace process? The Minister of State meets his colleagues on a regular basis. It would be helpful if he were even to express his dismay or concern about what was happening or to ask whether this was a new development in the process.

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