Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. Deputy Gormley is indisposed. The Minister appears to have gone further today in his acceptance of US denials on the practice of rendition. Previously he stated publicly that a statement by the United States Government that rendition is not taking place would be sufficient. He appears also to have indicated that the US Government's definition of torture —"torture is torture is torture"— is acceptable to him. It has already been documented that the prisoners held without status in Guantanamo Bay are subject to isolation, deprivation and hooding, practices not regarded under any common definition of human rights as anything other than torture. If the Minister's definition coincides with that of the US Administration, the Government is in a difficult moral position.

I will go further. Does the Minister believe that the current US Administration has not at any time misled or given false information to the Government? During the current conflict in Iraq the US Government has been seen to do nothing but mislead the entire world on its objectives.

On the specific questions on the transit of particular aeroplanes associated with the practice of rendition which have been readily identified in airports throughout the world, will the Minister comment specifically on reports in the Swedish press concerning the abduction of two Egyptian citizens, Ahmed Agiza and Muhammed Al Zery, on an aeroplane bearing the number N379P, subsequently identified as having stopped in Shannon Airport? Did the Minister and his Department become aware of these reports in Sweden? Did they make contact with the Swedish Government? Did the Minister discover whether any definition of flight paths coincided with Sweden and Ireland on that day?

Can the Minister explain why, of the 50 flights that have been identified by the Federal Aviation Authority in the United States as having arrived in Shannon, only 35 are recorded as having left? Does that mean there was a practice of secret flights coming in and out of Shannon? Is the Government aware of this and is it colluding in the practice of secret flights using Shannon? Is the Minister aware of the action being taken by the secretary general of the Council of Europe in invoking Article 52 of the council's human rights charter for only the eighth time in its history to investigate these allegations in several European countries?

Why is it that the Minister continues to believe that somehow Ireland is different and indifferent to what is happening in this situation? The opinion of New York University's college of law would seem to indicate that foreknowledge of——

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