Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

First, to be clear, I agree with the Deputy. It is totally unacceptable, should any munitions carried through Irish airspace or landing in Irish airports en route to the conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon and the Middle East, especially following what we heard earlier about our soldiers being on the front line there, and the citizens of Gaza. Every party, and I think every Deputy, in this House agrees that it is completely unacceptable that there should be any support for that through the provision of weapons munitions through our airspace.

Second, prior to the articles being published by The Ditch, in response to a Private Members' motion in the Seanad, I had indicated we were looking to strengthen the provisions in the Irish law, which date back to the seventies and eighties, to make sure that we could give confidence to the public that we were doing everything we could to avoid that possibility. If I were to summarise what we need to do in this legislative change, and I will look to bring a memo to the Government to this effect, it is giving us the capability of providing greater ability to search, sample and sanction flights that might be carrying such munitions. We must search, on a random basis - as we have been talking about for some time, but we now need to deliver - aircraft that may land in our airports. Sampling is complex and difficult because this all has to be part of an international aviation agreement, but we need to sample overflights manifests to make sure that it is appropriate that an exemption was not sought.

Third, in instances where a carrier may have breached international and Irish law in this regard, we must strengthen our ability to sanction. That is what we intend to do.

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