Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am also concerned by the response. The Minister of State said, "We trust our Spanish friends to decide for themselves how to shape their future." That is the problem. I do not trust Mariano Rajoy or the Spanish state that has a brutal history of suppressing the desire for self-determination of the people of Catalonia. We do not and should not trust them. What we saw on Saturday was a shocking, violent suppression of people who were acting peacefully and trying to do so in a democratic way. The Catalan Parliament made a democratic decision to hold a referendum and the people went out to try to cast their ballot papers and the Spanish state suppressed them violently. The European is always going on about its commitment to human rights. This is an elementary human right under international law for people to exercise the freedom to self-determination and the Spanish state is denying it. What is the Government going to state about this? What is the European Union going to state about it? If it states nothing, its claim to be concerned about democracy or human rights will be in tatters. Frankly, it has covered itself in shame in the last few days in failing to speak out more robustly about what the Spanish state is doing.

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