Results 5,381-5,400 of 9,332 for speaker:Pádraig Mac Lochlainn

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: I have some final questions, and Senator Ó Clochartaigh wants to put a final question also. In the third paragraph of the correspondence from December of 2013 the Private Secretary, writing on behalf of the Minister, states: The Air Navigation (Foreign Military Aircraft) Order 1952 gives the Minister for Foreign Affairs primary responsibility for the regulation of activity by foreign...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: I appreciate that and, in fairness, Mr. Burgess clarified in the original correspondence in December that he did, so I accept that my query was not entirely justified. In terms of my next question, Mr. Burgess rightly pointed out the reasons we have friendly relations with the United States. I would go further and say we have an umbilical relationship with the United States. Some 70 million...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: Deputy Halligan does not have the advantage that Senators O’Keeffe and Ó Clochartaigh and I have because we have been to Shannon Airport and met the management there and the management of An Garda Síochána. Our sense of it is that the management of the airport operates within the law and allows flights, subject to the licence from the Department of Transport, Tourism...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: I am just clarifying the points the Deputy has made. The Garda confirmed that it has on several occasions searched planes following reports of wrongdoing. It also pointed out the constraints on a military aircraft that had received a diplomatic note. It would regard that as a foreign embassy.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: That is fair enough.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: In fairness, they have agreed, subject to advice, that they will release this information. They just do not have it readily to hand.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: We can dance around on this but the bottom line is we are advised that either the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade or some Department of Government has given permission to 2.3 million US marines to come through Shannon Airport with their weapons stored away. Is that a fair point?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: I will say a large number.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: You do not want to commit to the number but is it fair to say a huge number of US marines and members of the US army have come through Shannon Airport with the permission of the Government, with a side arm and rifle on board a plane?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: That is for huge numbers.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: That is a fair point. It is just that in the correspondence to this committee it is not acknowledged. You speak about 50,000 in one year, 2013, but in terms of the scale over the period of time that would be a concern. Do you think the fact that two Departments and Government permit such a huge number of members of the US army, marines or whatever, to come through Shannon Airport on the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: How do you define military neutrality?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: Would you regard the fact that we permit huge numbers of members of the US army on the way to the theatre of war to stop over and avail of our facilities as commensurate with what you would understand to be military alliances?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: I have a final question. You said the process is that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade would be consulted on potential exemptions and prior approval and would make a recommendation to the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. Does the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport advise you as to whether it accepted the recommendation?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: In terms of chartered flights going through the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, is it the responsibility of the company or the US State Department to make the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade aware of what is on board the plane? If an aeroplane is full of US service men and women, which it is acknowledged would be permitted to have side arms or rifles stored away, there is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: Would you be in a position to outline examples? You talked about gases and explosives. Can you provide the committee with examples? Is there a log? Has a record been kept of these? Obviously we will have to communicate with the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport following this meeting. Would the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade have within its files a record of the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: Is that information that the witnesses would be willing to provide to the committee?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: Perhaps the Secretary General would clarify that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: Okay.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: What we seek to do, the witnesses can take this as a request, is to look at the records of the requests made by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade showing the itemised lists of what was on board the aeroplane and what the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade recommended or did not recommend. We would like to have access to that...