Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan. Nobody is more familiar than she with the issue I am raising. One of the most interesting and creative references in the programme for Government is the one which states: "We will position Ireland, in particular Shannon Airport, to become an international hub for the storage and distribution of emergency humanitarian supplies". Shannon Airport has lost a significant amount of business through the ending of the Shannon stopover and of its role as a hub for flights to and from the former USSR. While some of that business has been replaced by the accommodation of United States troops travelling to and from Iraq and Afghanistan - which has been a cause for controversy - that too is coming to an end with the full repatriation of United States troops due in August next year. Therefore, we do not have much time before much of the existing business will disappear.

The Lisbon treaty introduced for the first time a specific legal basis for the humanitarian aid obligations of the European Union in its own right. The Union is now the world's largest humanitarian aid donor, providing more than 40% of all such aid internationally. We must implement the undertaking in the programme for Government in this regard by ensuring Ireland is properly positioned to function as a major hub for the provision and dispersal of humanitarian aid. Shannon Airport is ideally located for this purpose on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. Moreover, it has the depot capacity and runways to accommodate all the necessary container air transport.

Ireland is a neutral country and acceptable as an honest broker almost everywhere in the world. As such, we should look to provide, at Shannon Airport, a template for the storage and dispersal of aid in the context of natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis and famines, as well as the destruction arising from war and other human activities. Shannon is desperately in need of being a new hub for a major activity and the Lisbon treaty provides the opportunity for it to be a depot and hub for the storage and dispersal of humanitarian aid throughout the world in the context of the various needs stated in the Lisbon treaty.

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