Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have some questions. In the correspondence sent to the committee - there was correspondence from the Minister but also from the Department - the Department specified that, in terms of the military aircraft, it has assurances that no weaponry would be carried on board when they land. That is the assurance. It is a matter of trust between states and on that basis, the Department would grant it.

What the Department did not outline to the committee in that correspondence is that almost all of the estimated 2.3 million marines who have come through Shannon during the various wars that have taken place over the past decade would have been carrying at least a side arm, not on their person but in the storage. They probably would have had an issued rifle and other weaponry on board on the way to the theatre of war. That was not made clear to the committee in that correspondence. The Department did point to the assurances it has around military aircraft but it did not point to the fact that, in terms of the charter flights, it would have access to data on the numbers of flights of marines per year. I want to know why that was not made clear to the committee and we had to discover that in Shannon.