Niall Ó Donnghaile (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Before I begin, I would like to second the moving of the National Asset Management Agency (Amendment) Bill 2017 by Senator Conway-Walsh.

I join colleagues in remarking on the weekend's events in Catalonia. Regardless of how they voted in the weekend's referendum, I want to express my solidarity with and commend the people there on taking their courageous stand in participating in that most basic tenet of the exercise of democracy. The response of the Spanish state, which has been referred to, was to meet those people with baton-wielding riot police and, ultimately, violence. The response of the Irish Government was slow in coming but I welcome an Taoiseach's remarks in the Dáil to the effect that he was horrified by the scenes of violence on Sunday and that he would raise the matter with the Spanish Prime Minister. I encourage Fine Gael Senators to do the same with their sister-party colleagues in the Partido Popular, PP.

I believe to my core in the right of the Catalan people to national self-determination. We should all be able to agree, not least here in Ireland, on the fundamental right of any people to pursue that objective peacefully and through the ballot box, as was seen on Sunday. It is my view that the momentum is behind the people of Catalonia who voted overwhelmingly in favour of their right to independence. The Taoiseach's assertion that the Government will not recognise the vote of the Catalan people will not only put this country on the wrong side of history, it is not reflective of the broad view of the people of Ireland.

Ireland's bond with the Catalan people dates back many generations. My own home city of Belfast sent many volunteers to fight against Franco and against the kind of tactics which we saw deployed against the people of Catalonia at the weekend. My parish sent two IRA volunteers, Liam Tumilson and James Straney, who died in defence of the kind of democracy we saw exercised by the people of Catalonia on Sunday. The people there have spoken. They have voted for their independence. As we prepare in the coming years, quite rightly, to remember and honour the historic election of 1918 and the establishment of our own democratically-elected Government in 1919 and the First Dáil, which too faced repression and violence, it ill behoves the Government to be a passive observer to the changing political and social dynamic across Europe. The Taoiseach should address us on this matter and heed the calls coming from Catalonia for an independent, international mediator to be appointed by the EU to help navigate the changed political paradigm which now exists between Spain and the people of Catalonia.