Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

Will the Minister make himself familiar with the Amnesty International report, of which he did not seem to be aware when questioned by Deputy Allen? It stated that between September 2001 and September 2005, Shannon Airport was used on 50 occasions by CIA planes disguised as commercial aircraft. We must first ask what these planes were doing.

The Minister should take on board the legal reality. His statements to date have been akin to those of a priest in church trying to tell us about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is a matter of faith but the matter in hand is one of law. In legal terms, the Government does not have a leg to stand on, as highlighted by the Irish Centre for Human Rights in a seminar at which Professor Manfred Nowak and Mona Rishmawi, the legal adviser to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that it was legally obliged to search the aircraft. Not doing so was the subject of the allegation of collusion. It was made perfectly clear, making reference to the UN Convention against torture and Article 16 of the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation, that diplomatic assurances are inadmissible in law.

It is not acceptable for the Minister to tell us that he is an Irishman and proud to oppose torture if he is being presented with a case as to why he did not search the planes. Will he take on board that expert rigorous international legal opinion requires that diplomatic assurances alone are not acceptable? To accept such assurances is to be complicit in any wrongdoing that may be uncovered. It is known as invoking the principle of trust. That, if it is all the Minister has done, is tantamount to colluding in rendition.

Will the Minister go beyond that principle of trust, no matter how well-meaning or well-founded he believes it to be, and exercise the legal requirement that these planes be searched? That is a fundamental legal requirement. It is not a matter of opinion, but is, in fact, the legal position as articulated in Article 4 of the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and Article 16 of the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation. In my opinion, the Government is complicit because it has not required the searching of those planes. Will the Minister not just inform the US authorities that he must comply with the law and that it is not a question of not trusting them? It is simply to ensure that, in legal terms, we do what is required of us.

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