Dr. Edward Horgan:

Yes, I think it is. It is important to say that we are not conspiracy theorists as such, but we have a strong impression that there is a sort of conspiracy to silence the likes of us and I have experienced this myself. I have been charged on four separate occasions with spurious crimes all relating to Shannon Airport, all of which were subsequently dismissed. In dictatorial countries, we often have what is known as punishment without trial. In respect of Shannon Airport, in Ireland we have a system of punishment by trial. The gardaí have brought cases against me and others on several occasions, knowing that there was no proper basis for the case. The case is processed through the court and I have to go to court time and again as the case is postponed and take time off from what I am doing and hire a solicitor and a barrister at considerable expense, knowing that I will get off eventually.

An even more worrying aspect occurred quite recently, in a particular case in which I had already made a complaint to the Garda ombudsman which had more or less summarily ignored or dismissed my complaint. The Garda ombudsman did inform me in writing that it had sent a copy of my particular complaint to the Director of Public Prosecutions with a view to informing the DPP that the case should be dismissed or should not go ahead, yet the DPP's office appeared to have ignored that. I have been told anecdotally that there is a standing instruction in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions that any cases involving protesters at Shannon Airport should automatically be let go to trial. If that was the case it would be very worrying that somebody has attempted to interfere at the level of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions which should be independent of political interference. There is evidence that there is a web of interference in order to silence the likes of us and to avoid investigating what has been going on at Shannon Airport.