Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am opposed to this motion because it will put Shannon Airport under further pressure to maintain itself by facilitating the US military war machine. By removing the most profitable component of Shannon, Aer Rianta International, the airport will be forced to increase its dependence on military traffic from the United States in order to maintain its viability. The Government is aware of this fact. The motion is also another stepping stone on the way to privatisation and undermining the conditions of workers and employees. The absence of consultation with staff and unions is indicative of what is going on.

I note that Michael O'Leary is opposed to the changes because he wants full privatisation of the airport.

Sadly, Michael O'Leary's concerns are ill-founded because, like with many of these quangos or established semi-State operations, moving them a little further away from direct State control into some sort of quango is a stepping stone towards privatisation. All the commercial pressures that drive companies towards privatisation will now begin to operate on Shannon because its most profitable component has been removed and because the hopes for a major expansion in passenger numbers are absolute fantasy, particularly against a global background of falling passenger numbers and economic crisis in this country and in Europe.

The idea that Shannon Airport will be able to increase civilian passenger numbers significantly is pie in the sky. What will happen is that Shannon Airport will be pushed into further dependence on US military traffic. This process has been apparent for quite a while, but it will accelerate now. If one were a conspiracy theorist - I am not - one would wonder whether matters such as this were discussed by the Government with US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, during her visit last week. There is certainly no doubt about the key role Shannon Airport has played in facilitating the US war machine nor about how important the US Government considers Shannon to be in propping up its war machine. It was no coincidence, for example, that when President Obama was visiting Moneygall he made a point of saying how important Shannon Airport was and how grateful the US Government was for the facilitation of the US military there. With the economic viability of Shannon Airport seriously under question, undermined and under pressure as a result of the Government's proposal, the pressure to expand its facilitation of the US military machine will increase significantly.

It is worth pointing out what the terrible cost of this has been for a country that is supposed to be militarily neutral and which has asserted in its Constitution that we should in no way play any part in facilitating military conflict on the international stage or participate in wars. For ten years now, since the horrors of the 9/11 obscenity that took place in New York and the war on terror that ensued, we have seen the barbaric war in Iraq claim 1 million lives or more, tens of thousands of lives claimed in Afghanistan and the abomination of the US rendition programme, where the most powerful and supposedly most democratic and civilised state in the world engaged in routine kidnap and torture of alleged terrorist suspects and maintained places like Guantanamo Bay, where people are left for years without trial. The fact that Shannon Airport is part of that architecture is appalling. Our current President has been very forceful on this over the years and has called for an end to it. The Labour Party, prior to the election, said it was utterly opposed to the use of Shannon Airport to facilitate the US war machine, yet here we are about to adopt a measure that will put further pressure on Shannon Airport to depend on this traffic in order to sustain itself as a viable entity.

With the austerity, the economic crisis and all the other terrible things happening in society, this matter will pass under the radar for most people. In some ways this is understandable, but it is vital to register opposition and protest against this move and its implications in terms of deepening Ireland's involvement with the US military machine as it continues to engage in its brutal war mongering in Afghanistan. This comes at a terrible cost to the people there. We know economic crisis and military conflict go together historically. Sadly, given the deepening global economic crisis and the huge instability we see in areas like the Middle East, it is quite probable we will see further military ventures conducted by the United States over the coming years. Again, Ireland will be involved in those as it is becoming a kind of outlying military base for the United States war machine. This motion, to separate Shannon Airport from the Dublin Airport Authority will move it even further in that direction.

I oppose this motion strongly and appeal to the Government to understand that what airports should be is part of our vital civilian infrastructure. They deserve to be subsidised - this goes for Knock and other small airports - because they are part of our vital infrastructure. They should not be dependent on the toings and froings of the global market and certainly should not be dependent on the war machine of the United States or anywhere else.

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