Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Sinn Féin team in the Seanad I condemn what was done to Éamon de Valera's grave. It was wholly unacceptable; there are no other words for it.

Senator McDowell spoke about torture and I agree with what he said. We are ever mindful that thousands of young men in the North were interned, and many of them were tortured, and it is well-documented now in terms of the hooded men. They went through horrific torture. It was a political decision to do that, and the Irish Government and this 26 county State were complicit in their silence on that. I wanted to highlight that.

I was surprised yesterday to hear my colleague, Senator Swanick, champion the proposition of an annual national holiday on 21 January to celebrate our Independence because his own party, Fianna Fáil, has been inconsistent in its voting record regarding the issue of a public holiday to celebrate the struggle for Independence and all those who took part in it. Sinn Féin introduced the Public Holiday (Lá na Poblachta) Bill in October 2015 and before the last general election, Fianna Fáil voted in favour of it. However, when the Bill was reintroduced in June 2016 and again in November last, in light of the new arithmetic in the Dáil and despite the rise in the national sentiment as a result of the various events organised for the centenary year in which the public played a huge role, all Senator Swanick's colleagues voted against the very same Bill. I cannot understand why a Bill which was acceptable in October 2015 was deemed unacceptable and voted against the following June. I use this as an opportunity to urge Fianna Fáil to have the courage to agree with Sinn Féin when it matters. We are, of course, flattered by the continuing imitation of many of our policies but the public would gain far more if Fianna Fáil stayed away from the blue abstain button and gave voters the respect they deserve and took a stand on really important issues like this. Indeed, we saw the same behaviour-----