Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

Ultimately, it is a matter for the Garda and the DPP to decide what constitutes a reasonable doubt and whether a crime was committed. Any claim must then stand up in court. To be fair to Deputy Cuffe and others, it is suggested there have been incidents involving several notorious planes which have travelled across the world. There may be some scope in future — I say this by way of suggestion, I am not trying to tell the Garda what to do — if one of these famous planes were to land at Shannon or any other airport in the country, for the Garda to ascertain whether a crime was committed, given that airplane's history. However, we identified that a small number of these notorious planes landed at Shannon during my time as Minister for Foreign Affairs. On one occasion I was informed that one of these planes had landed at Shannon, but upon investigation, we found the plane was taking three or four golfers around Ireland and was travelling from Shannon to Sligo, Belfast and elsewhere. In the case of another so-called rendition flight, it was revealed following investigation that the plane had a cargo of racehorses on board.

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