Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is a lot of agreement between us on this issue. The question now is what the Taoiseach is going to do about it. I welcome his commitment to raise this with Prime Minister Rajoy. The people of Spain are our allies. They are friends of Ireland but so too are the people of Catalonia. There are notable links between the Catalan and Irish independence movements. The Taoiseach may know that Terence McSwiney's hunger strike in 1920 inspired the independence movement there. When Terence McSwiney died, organisations from Catalonia wrote to the British Prime Minister condemning the treatment of the Cork mayor and there were mass demonstrations on the streets of Barcelona.

We are agreed that we need dialogue and mediation. We are agreed that, as the Taoiseach has outlined, when the State uses violence it leads to more division, disunity and radicalisation.

Will the Taoiseach pick up the telephone to Mr. Rajoy to tell him this? His party and that of Mr. Rajoy are sister members of the European People's Party group. Dialogue is what kick-started and sustains the peace process; therefore, I ask him to move on the very welcome statement he has made and raise these issues directly with the Spanish Prime Minister.

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