Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

It is sometimes necessary to be frank in friendly relations with another country. It is important for the Minister to know that those members of Human Rights Watch who watched the plane landing in Shannon provided information that led to the conclusion drawn in the Swedish case. It is the same plane and its flight plan included destinations such as Morocco, Uzbekistan and Egypt, countries in which torture is practised.

When we ratify the optional protocol against torture in 2006 it will be open to outside bodies to arrive in Ireland and seek to examine and convince themselves that people are not being transported in these planes.

The Human Rights Watch report is interesting too about the circumstances in which an individual was removed from Sweden, if the Minister wishes to quote it. The individual's clothes were cut off and he was chained on a mattress while the Swedish authorities looked on in shock. Extraordinary rendition is the focus of this question. It is a major blow to international law. It is outside all the framework conventions. The Minister should think about this.

It is difficult to ask a citizen or me as an Opposition spokesperson, to find the person in chains and a jump suit with a hood over his head, on a mattress in the plane. The only way to be truthful in support of both European Conventions mentioned in the question, and the United Nations Convention, is to say to the Government with which we have friendly relations: "In order to satisfy the international concern and that of our citizens we propose to institute random searches, particularly of this plane, which has nothing to do with the arrangements that existed previously."

The plane in question is on contract to the US state department and is used by the CIA whose inspector general is quoted this morning as saying that what was permitted is outside the UN Convention against torture.

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