Lord Mayor of Dublin: “You deserve your independence”

Dublin (ACN).- The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Christy Burke said that Catalonia “deserves independence”. “We certainly understand the position, the views and the feelings of the Catalan people because we know what it was like to be treated, at least some of us do, as second-class citizens”, stated Burke in an interview with the news agency ACN. After meeting with a delegation from the Public Diplomacy Council of Catalonia (DIPLOCAT) and the Catalan Government, the Lord Mayor of Dublin offered his support to the Catalan plebiscitary elections, to be held on the 27^th of September.

“The ballot box is a wonderful thing”, he said when asked about the elections of the 27^th of September. “Catalans can do that, the ballot box speaks volumes”, he added. The Lord Mayor of Dublin pointed out that “democracy will prevail” and that “the experience and assistance” of Irish leaders such as Gerry Adams “could be of great value” to the Catalans that want independence.

Asked about whether the Spanish government will ultimately allow a referendum of independence in Catalonia, Christy Burke said he didn’t know. “I would hope so, you deserve your independence, you deserve your self-determination”, he pointed out. “It’s like the Scottish people. For years, they were looking for that and it was being ignored”, he said, adding that when the referendum “became a very high political issue”, the Scottish were granted the right to hold one. “When the people of Scotland demanded their right to have a referendum on independence, they got it. Independence didn’t happen, but it might happen next time”, he said.

“I would hope that the Spanish President and the government allow” a referendum in order to allow Catalans “to have the basic rights to freedom, to self-determination”. “At the end of the day, I would hope that your country can go forward in the way that Ireland did”, said the Lord Mayor of Dublin, adding that he had “no doubt that Ireland would assist, in whatever way possible” the Catalan leaders in order to achieve “an adequate, decent, independent by self-determination, country to live in”.

The DIPLOCAT and the Catalan trade union UGT visited Dublin this week in order to pay tribute to Irish historic leaders Charles Stewart Parnell and James Connolly. “The Irish people understand completely the plebiscitary elections of the 27-S because they also transformed a normal election, the UK general election of 1918, into a ‘de facto’ referendum on independence”, said the secretary general of the DIPLOCAT, Albert Royo. “Republicans won and they decided to create the Republic of Ireland”, he added. The Lord Mayor of Dublin hosted on Thursday a reception for the Catalan delegation at Dublin City Council. Politicians, diplomats and members of civil society in Ireland and Catalonia took part in the event.