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

There is agreement across the political spectrum in the Basque country that this is the way forward. There is a difficulty in terms of prisoners. The Spanish Government adopted a dispersal policy, as a result of which prisoners were located away from their families, across Spain and as far away as the Canary Islands. Given our experience, there are issues the Government could address, including stressing the importance of prisoners as part of the overall peace process.

There are simple messages. It need not be done today in this Chamber, but there are messages that we could send privately to the Spanish authorities that this is what worked in Ireland. They might pick up on them, and it might defuse the situation and might help create the conditions for that fledgling peace process to bloom.

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