Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I raise an issue of international concern. Last year, I visited Colombia as part of a Justice for Colombia peace monitor delegation. I travelled extensively through the country and witnessed at first hand horrific stories of human rights abuses. I visited a small town called Cajibio in the Cauca region and met a young man, Jayder Quintana, who was just 17 years old when I met him. At the beginning of this month, he was gunned down and murdered. A few minutes before he was murdered, a policeman came to check his identity card to see who he was, and then the right-wing paramilitaries arrived and gunned him down.

Jayder was a member of the FENSUAGRO trade union, which has a relationship with the Unite union here and in Britain. The most dangerous country in the world in which to be a member of a trade union is Colombia. Trade union members have been gunned down in their hundreds. Some 1,000 people have been murdered since the peace process was initiated four years ago. The key problem is that the Colombian Government is not implementing what was agreed to at that time, in respect of rural reform, justice and the country's national commission for security guarantees.

The Colombian Embassy is very active in Dublin. I call for a foreign affairs debate in order that we can discuss the matter in greater detail. I have written to the Minister for Foreign Affairs to request a meeting. I want to understand what measures the Government will take to put pressure on its Colombian counterpart. To be fair, while the people at the embassy are very decent and fair people, we are talking about a far-right government that seems to be watching on as people are slaughtered month after month. We have to do what we can to ensure, for people such as Jayder, murdered like so many in Colombia just for trying to build a better life for his family and community, that something fundamental will be done by the Government. We need to hear justice for the people of Colombia.