David Norris (Independent)

I move:

That Seanad Éireann, in light of:

—developments in Iraq;

—the recent publication of the Council of Europe Report on CIA Rendition Flights; and

—the confusion surrounding the legal status of any Garda attempt to investigate the nature of these flights,

hereby calls for the establishment of the select committee on the use of Irish airports to investigate the use of Shannon by American military authorities, especially the CIA, for which preliminary preparatory meetings have already been held.

This is an important motion. It is a subject I have pursued for a considerable time. I was probably the first person in either House to raise this issue. I have with me a selection of what I stated on the matter during the past few years. I am sorry to state they have been proved right. I am particularly pleased my colleague, Senator Henry, will second the motion because on a notable occasion she extracted from the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform a clear statement about what the attitude of the Government is on any process akin to extraordinary rendition.

One of the horrifying things that has happened during the course of the Iraq war is the constant debasement of language, such as the phrase "extraordinary rendition", "shake and bake attacks" in which people are incinerated by illegal phosphorus bombing and suicides in Guantanamo Bay described as a "publicity stunt". This is unconscionable. Language has been devalued by the American Administration by removing from it all its moral content.

I put down this motion in light of the report by Senator Dick Marty, which made the subject topical. It has been rendered even more topical by the admission by the United States authorities that they transferred a chained and shackled prisoner through Shannon Airport in a civilian aircraft last Sunday without the required notification to the Irish authorities. This places a grave question mark over the assurances given to the Irish Government by the US authorities concerning their use of Shannon. These assurances were never legally binding anyway. It is a requirement of international law that they should be legally binding. They never have been and the Government knows this.

However, even if one accepted their assurances, one must look beneath these legally meaningless forms of words and understand this American Administration has departed drastically from the norms of international law. Torture has been redefined to the point where apparently the only proof a subject has been tortured is if it results in death or permanent injury. Practices such as waterboarding, in which the victim is half-drowned, revived under medical supervision and subsequently subjected to interrogation, a technique initiated by the Gestapo, is defined as not constituting torture.

No doubt, the piratical practice of kidnapping persons who may be either citizens of the US or third countries and transporting them to regimes which the Bush Administration publically holds in distaste so they may be tortured in the presence of CIA agents, is regarded by the current incumbent at the White House and his associates as being perfectly legal.

Regrettably, spokespersons for the Government appear to have been infected by the linguistic practices of our American cousins. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Dermot Ahern, in a statement issued no later than yesterday, stated we will not facilitate and have not facilitated extraordinary renditions and that is and remains our policy. Perhaps it remains a publicly-stated policy but it is and will remain totally untrue. I call on the Minister to withdraw it.

It has been demonstrated beyond any possibility of doubt that by refuelling aircraft such as the notorious "Guantanamo express" we have incontrovertibly facilitated the noxious practice of extraordinary rendition. We in old Europe and many in the United States know this degradation of international standards of decency does not, and should not, be allowed represent the typical values of the democratic world.

Throughout this debate there has been constant obfuscation and indulgence in what the Taoiseach would no doubt describe as "waffle". Serious questions have been asked but never answered. The Minister for Foreign Affairs confines himself to answering questions which have not been asked but for which he believes he has a mollifying answer. He defends the Government against accusations which have never been made while never replying to those which have.

There has been a tendency in Government circles to dismiss the Marty report. The language, we are told, is emotional. I would not have respect for anyone who did not become emotional at the prospect of human beings, in some cases subsequently proved totally innocent, being snatched off the streets or intercepted in airports, their clothes surgically shorn from their bodies, drug suppositories inserted in their anus, unceremoniously clothed in nappies, then shackled to the inside of a CIA plane disguised as a civilian aircraft and transported to destinations they know not where for the purposes of being tortured.

This is all done in the name of realpolitik to maintain American investment in Ireland. This is a short-sighted and mercenary view of morality and never served the Government well in the past. Senator Mansergh in this House last Thursday, if one unpicks the diplomatic language, was surprisingly frank on this issue, stating the conduct of foreign policy and our relations with other countries often involves striking difficult balances, taking into account both our values and interests.

Striking that balance wrongly can have serious long-term consequences. This is virtually what I was told by the Fianna Fáil benches when I was a lone voice opposing Irish beef deals with the Iraqi army. I well remember the phrase which emerged from the foreign affairs spokesperson on the other side, when I was told what I advocated might well be the moral position, but could Ireland afford it. We still have not resolved the question as to whether Ireland can afford to act morally in international relations.

I have some direct questions for the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and I would appreciate some direct answers. If, as the spokesperson suggested, there is nothing new in the Marty report, why has comment not been made on the clearly proven fact that Ireland has been involved in facilitating rendition? The Minister of State is shaking his head but it is perfectly clear. A man was snatched off the street, he was taken to Egypt, he was tortured and we refuelled that aeroplane on the way back. That facilitates rendition. At least, I know what the meaning of language is, does the Minister of State?

Does he accept that, as I stated, the flight in June 2003, almost exactly three years ago, in which Abu Omar was abducted in Milan, illegally flown to Egypt where he was tortured, was refuelled at Shannon Airport with the consent of the Irish Government on its return journey during the same flight schedule? Does he accept this is clear evidence, and would so be accepted by an international criminal court, of Ireland's collusion with the United States in the practice of extraordinary rendition?

Does he accept that only for the action of cleaning staff, who boarded the aircraft at Shannon last Sunday, a blind eye would have been turned to this incident also? Does he accept that had the aeroplane, which had just dumped Abu Omar in Egypt for the purposes of torture, been inspected in Shannon the modifications made to that aeroplane for the purpose of transferring prisoners would have been noticed and reported?

I was one of three people who made a complaint to the Garda Commissioner concerning these flights. In response, he appointed two detective inspectors to interview me. I arranged to be accompanied at that interview by Deputy Michael D. Higgins. We checked our recollections of that meeting and we can both state independently that we were told on that occasion by these senior representatives of the Garda Síochána that because of the way in which international treaties were incorporated into Irish law, they lacked the power to make the type of investigations sought at that time. This is in clear and direct contradiction of what both the Taoiseach and Minister for Foreign Affairs told the Dáil and the public. In reply to a question by Deputy Sargent in the Dáil yesterday, the Taoiseach retorted that Deputy Sargent was not a garda. This is quite true but neither is the Taoiseach. I, at least, have the advantage of having spoken to the representatives of the Garda Commissioner. Will the Minister of State outline precisely the legal status concerning such investigations? This is exactly the kind of area that the abortive committee, whose terms of reference had already been agreed by an all-party committee of the Oireachtas, could have investigated had it not been squashed by a combination of interest groups operating in the undergrowth of Leinster House.

Arguments were made that Senators were lobbied by local councillors from the area around Shannon Airport. It is a sad day that Seanad Éireann should be ruled from Clare County Council. I would have thought councillors would have learned by now that it can be dangerous to mix money and morality. In any case, American business is peculiarly hard-headed. Despite all the obsequious lickspittling, it was announced a week ago in the newspapers that a large proportion of these commercial military flights is being transferred to other European destinations which are more convenient. Shannon Airport will and must survive but it should not and must not survive on blood money.

There have been attacks on the Marty report, on its use of language and its reference to a "spider's web". However, I have a map showing the flight paths and if it were shown to any child, he or she would describe it as a spider's web. Shannon Airport is right at the centre of this network of shame.