Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I have never seen a Government plan begin to fall apart so quickly as Transport 21. This morning, as I was boarding the train in Cork, I was presented with a copy of Irish Rail's new timetable for the next 12 months from Cork, which shows no changes from the previous 12 months in spite of the much trumpeted new fast trains every hour. In fact, a few of them are slightly slower. It has only taken a month for Transport 21 to begin to fall apart. I congratulate the Government; it must be a first.

In the other House yesterday the Taoiseach stated he would not allow this State to be used to facilitate torture. While there is an all-party group examining this, there are issues that need to be addressed. Does slapping somebody with the aim of causing pain and triggering fear constitute torture? Does leaving somebody standing for 40 hours bolted to the floor constitute torture? Does leaving somebody to stand naked in a cell in nearly 50° Celsius constitute torture? Does water-boarding constitute torture? When we took the British Government to the European Court of Human Rights we said those matters were torture. The European Court of Human Rights found differently. The matters to which I refer come from an ABC News report of 18 November on two CIA operatives describing what the CIA currently does. I want the Government to make clear whether it believes the matters I described constitute torture because to most of us they do.

On the question of the use of aeroplanes by the US Government, the Government stated they are civilian planes and therefore did not need permission to land here. Is it the Government's position that if the private jet of a Columbian drug baron landed in Shannon we would say that it is only a civilian plane and we can do nothing about it? If the private plane of a Mafia boss, whom we suspected of being involved in international drug dealing, landed in Shannon would we say that it is only a private plane and we can do nothing about it? Does the Government accept that those planes are owned by the CIA? It would be helpful to answer that question "Yes" or "No".

Everybody else in Europe, everybody else in every other parliament and most of the journalists of North America and Europe accept and know that those aeroplanes are not civilian aeroplanes but are owned by the CIA. It is time we were clear on this, for once and for all, because the US Secretary of State, as Members stated on the Order of Business yesterday, is involved in the most extraordinary stretching of language, and that is being diplomatic.

We need clarity on this. If countries allowed the trains that brought people to Auschwitz to go through their territory empty, they were facilitating Auschwitz. If we allow CIA aeroplanes to go through Shannon empty, we are facilitating the CIA in the practice of torture and there is no room for lack of clarity on this.