Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Tánaiste rightly said it should have been a weekend of celebration, and it was, but it turned out to be a weekend of great tragedy, which overshadowed an opportunity for great celebration for the nation. All the eloquent words that already have been spoken cannot express the shock and sorrow which struck people in this House and nationwide and which all Members feel today. Sometimes, the most eloquent thing one can do is to be silent and the minute's silence at the end probably will be a greater tribute to the people who died this weekend than anything Members can say in the Chamber today.

I visited Carrickmines on Saturday morning and what struck me about this awful event was not what people said but what they did not say. There was an extraordinary atmosphere there, just after ten people had died, of people saying nothing because there was nothing they could say, because they felt so utterly and totally helpless in the situation that had arisen and were stunned. There were gardaí, ambulance people, locals and others present, all of whom were utterly shocked in disbelief at what had happened to the Travelling community. There is a particular unpleasantness about the fact this has happened to a group who are marginalised in society and traditionally are defenceless. On behalf of the Technical Group, I wish to sympathise with all the families involved and their relations.

Equally, I wish to sympathise on behalf of my colleagues with the relatives of Garda Anthony Golden, who was simply doing his duty. While one is too many, there have been several incidents of gardaí being murdered in situations like this. Let us hope the circumstances in which he found himself and in particular, he who pulled the trigger, will not be repeated and something can be done to prevent these appalling things happening again. I was travelling back from Cardiff on a bus and when we got the news that this had happened, there once again was an extraordinary silence which descended on everybody. They did not really know what to say because in that moment of triumph, they suddenly found disaster. This is a reality of life.

It is the duty of those of us in this House to do as much as possible to prevent those things happening. I wish also to mention the loss of yet another life of equal importance, namely, the homeless person who died in Westmoreland Street on Saturday night. While I do not think the name of this person is yet known it is imperative that that life is not lost in the more high profile tragedies which we witnessed over the weekend. I wish to express my sympathy to all three families and pray that we in this House can do something to prevent these things happening again.

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