Conor Lenihan (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

The Government has made clear on several occasions its response to the report of the European Parliament's temporary committee examining extraordinary rendition and I do not propose to repeat its response in detail. I will, however, again place on record the Government's unequivocal condemnation of extraordinary rendition, whether it emanates from friendly or hostile powers. I also repeat that we welcome certain aspects of the report, in particular its effective confirmation that prisoners were never transferred through Irish territory. This is a matter on which Ireland has received unparalleled assurances from the United States authorities, which are of a different quality and clarity from those received by most other countries. Ireland was the first country to raise this issue with the United States authorities and has taken the lead in the European Union in highlighting it.

It is a matter of serious disappointment that the temporary committee of the European Parliament squandered the opportunity to examine how to prevent, or at least deter, extraordinary rendition in future. This failure exposes some of the committee's members to the allegation that they were show-boating on the issue, rather than addressing the underlying problem.

As Dr. Maurice Manning, president of the Irish Human Rights Commission, has been reported as saying, the final report contains "a lot of political point-scoring". Such was the degree of partisanship in it, that I understand certain Irish MEPs on the TDIP committee felt they could not vote on the report.

As Deputies will be aware, extraordinary rendition in Europe has been the subject of investigations in the European Parliament and Council of Europe. The Government's policy of co-operation with these investigations is demonstrated by the fact the Minister for Foreign Affairs was one of only two Ministers for Foreign Affairs to attend a meeting of the European Parliament's committee in Brussels. At the Council of Europe, Ireland's response to a questionnaire circulated by the Secretary General was one of only nine of 46 member state responses which he adjudged to be sufficiently exhaustive as not to require further clarification. International evidence clearly shows that Ireland has been proactive and responsive on this matter.

See this speech in context