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

I was one of the organisers of what was probably one of the biggest marches in the history of the State in 2003, namely, the march against the planned war in Iraq. At the time we warned that the US bombing campaign would possibly claim up to 50,000 lives. Some estimates suggest that nearly 1 million people died in the war, and certainly it was several hundred thousand. It was an utter disaster that devastated Iraqi society. Now, 13 years later the United States is doing the same thing again and already the consequences look disastrous. It is shoring up support for the crazy and dangerous people in ISIS among other extremists in the region and beyond. A potentially explosive and dangerous cocktail is being fermented by US bombing. Against that background and the clearly demonstrated support in this country over many years for Irish neutrality, how can the Minister justify the passage of US troops through Shannon Airport to conduct a disastrous repeat of the war we saw in the Middle East?

Likewise, how can the Minister justify the fact that the planes are never searched? He told this House that he depends on assurances from the American Government that it is not doing anything that it is not telling the Government. During the previous war the number of US troops going through Shannon dramatically increased and I have no doubt the same will happen again this time around. Why is the Minister allowing that to happen and not even searching planes when the US is involved in conducting a war?

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