Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It appears that neither Shannon Airport Authority nor the Government knows, or keeps proper records on, what US military aircraft land at Shannon. On four occasions lately, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade denied on the Dáil record that an aircraft had landed, although we knew it had. Then he discovered we had proof. The Minister told the Dáil last Tuesday:

Arising from new information which has been brought to my attention, I would like to correct the record of the House in respect of an error in responses to four parliamentary questions from Deputy Clare Daly starting on 7 October 2014 and finishing with Question No. 110 on 20 November 2014.

I replied to the questions on the basis of the information provided by Shannon Airport Authority.

How can it be acceptable that the Minister is relying on a civil authority for information regarding military traffic, given that the policy provides that only the Minister for Justice and Equality can give permission for military aeroplanes to land? If this aeroplane had permission to land, why did the Department not have a record of it? Clearly, it did not have a record. Now that the Minister has admitted the aeroplane was there, does the Government have any proof that the aeroplane was not involved in any military operation or exercise, in view of the fact that it was operated by a US Marine Corps Reserve squadron called the Rangers, which has done a great deal of work in Libya and Iraq?

Last year, a C-130 Hercules landed at Shannon with a weapon on board. We were told this was an administrative error and that it had no permit to land. The policy is inconsistent. In 2003, Judge Kearns ruled in the case of Horganv.Ireland in the High Court that it was illegal and a breach of international laws on neutrality for the Government to give approval for the movement of troops or munitions on their way to a war front.

How, in God's name, can we give permits to the civilian aircraft that we admit are carrying weapons with them when we know bloody well they are going to a war front? Does the Government have records of where the planes go? If not, how can we know whether they are going to a war front? Unless we have inspections and monitoring, how can we know we are not complicit in war crimes in the Middle East, where the US army has illegally occupied sovereign states and committed umpteen war crimes? How can we know what is on the aircraft when sometimes we do not even know they are there?

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