Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

No. I take no instructions of that nature from anybody. I am who I am. I was genuinely ill on that day and genuinely sorry I could not meet General Meyers. There was no insult intended to General Meyers. I made that clear to his staff and to the American Embassy.

I compliment Deputy Gormley on his wonderfully imaginative description of us getting rid of neutrality and being "hand in glove with the United States" and "complicit in the bloody war in Iraq". There is no complicity in the war in Iraq. This is an arrangement in Shannon that has continued for the past 50 or 60 years under the jurisdiction of various Governments.

If the Green Party becomes part of the next Government Deputy Gormley will insist that this arrangement comes to an end and we will lose 1,500 jobs immediately in the Shannon area. The troops will be able to go to another airport in a so-called neutral country to avail of the facilities there. Some countries whose governments won elections on the basis of opposing the Americans fell over one another to offer the facility to the United States if we were to withdraw it.

See this speech in context