Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I mean no disrespect to the Minister of State in saying his reply has an incredibly familiar ring to it, probably because I have heard it many times before. He will be aware that in a High Court case in 2003, Mr. Justice Kearns ruled that a neutral state may not permit the movement of large numbers of troops or munitions of one belligerent state through its territory en route to a theatre of war with another state. Shannonwatch gathers information daily on militarily contracted aircraft, which are described as civilian aircraft and move groups of troops from one belligerent state to a theatre of war, the devastating consequences of which have given us a refugee crisis greater than any previous refugee crisis.

The Government hides behind its conditions that military aircraft landing here must not be armed, must not be involved in military exercises, etc., but these conditions do not apply to aircraft contracted by the US military. It is a matter for the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport to issue permits for such landings. In that respect, I welcome the statement by the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, that he will have an examination carried out of definitions of civilian and state aircraft and of the monitoring, inspections and oversight in place in this regard. However, I want to know what the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade proposes to do on this issue. The previous Minister, Deputy Flanagan, spoke about keeping the matter under review. What does this mean given that we do not have evidence of any form of review taking place? Does the Department have plans to search aircraft? If not, what is the problem with searching them, even if only to prove us wrong? Why did thousands of troops from the United States transit through Shannon Airport in the past month? Why were exemptions obtained for hundreds of personal weapons during these flights if they are not engaged in military exercises? Someone is spending a hell of a lot of money to move troops from one corner of the world to another almost twice daily. We will be responsible if we do not start exercising our responsibility and examine what is going on.

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