Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

The matter I wish to raise on the Adjournment is the need for the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade to introduce an inspection regime at Shannon Airport to ensure that the integrity of Irish airspace is protected.

As the Acting Chairman will have read in the newspapers, there have been some disturbing revelations in regard to WikiLeaks in recent times. These revelations show that the previous Government was effectively paying lip-service to maintaining the integrity of Irish airspace. One of the main concerns was that one of the coalition partners, Fianna Fáil, was keeping its other partner, the Green Party, in the dark about what was going on. In the revelations the former Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, is quoted as being: "behind Ireland's steadfast support for the United States in permitting US military transits (347,000 US troops alone in 2005) that backstop US activities especially in Iraq and Afghanistan". Clearly, Shannon was the hub for the transportation of the vast majority of US troops to and from Iraq.

The Iraqi war was initiated under false pretences, namely, that the Iraqi regime was in possession of weapons of mass destruction, which was patently untrue. Nor did the war have a UN mandate at the time of its initiation. The Minister of State will remember that more than 100,000 people marched in Dublin alone against the war and the use of Shannon Airport for the transportation of US troops to what was then an illegal war.

The Iraqi war has ended, I presume no further troops are going to Iraq through Shannon and the Afghan war is coming to an end. Given the fact that we have a new Government with a new mandate, it is appropriate that we introduce a new regime of inspection, which was not done by the previous Government. The programme for Government reads, "We will enforce the prohibition on the use of Irish air space, airports and related facilities for purposes not in line with the dictates of international law". It would be impossible to ensure international law was observed and implemented unless some mechanism was put in place to supervise that implementation. This would require an inspection regime that at least involved some degree of random inspection of military and civilian aeroplanes.

Another commitment in the programme for Government effectively requires Ireland to assert its neutrality and the integrity of its air space. The programme reads, "We will position Ireland, in particular Shannon airport, to become an international hub for the storage and distribution of emergency humanitarian supplies". To do this, we need to assert our integrity in terms of our air space, our adherence to international law and our neutrality.

I will briefly mention a few background points. Irish law and international human rights law make specific provision against torture, inhumane and degrading treatment and placing individuals at risk to such treatment. The Dáil transposed the European Convention on Human Rights into Irish law in 2003. In 2006, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe conducted a report, the findings of which were alarming, namely, that there was a considerable amount of passive and active collusion with CIA flights to and from EU countries, including Ireland. Subsequently, the European Parliament took up the issue and made the same determinations. For example, it found that there had been 1,245 CIA-operated flights in EU air space between 2001 and 2005, the secret detention of prisoners and the illegal transportation or extraordinary rendition of detainees. In Ireland's case, the Parliament determined that 147 stopovers at Shannon Airport were made by CIA-operated aircraft that came from or were bound for countries linked with extraordinary rendition. Some of these aircraft were shown to have been used for the transportation of detainees by the CIA. Amnesty International took up the issue in 2008. Its report reads, "Also aircraft directly en route or returning from rendition missions have transited Shannon Airport".

Given the number of serious allegations about the abuse of Irish air space and the lack of an independent or governmental mechanism to determine what is occurring, does the Minister of State not agree that now is the appropriate time to introduce a supervisory regime as mentioned in the programme for Government?

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