Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and the contributions of other Senators. This is an issue that often gets debated in this House. Sometimes it is fraught with more hysteria than fact. I can understand that because at times we all become concerned about the issues as we perceive them. Coming from County Clare, it can also be an emotive issue, not just in monetary terms but also because there is a focus put on our county and on our airport for all the wrong reasons. I do not refer to anybody in this House, but people seek to make political capital or public comment on the back of what we believe is a very good piece of infrastructure and a benefit to the west of Ireland. They do so in a way that commingles fact with fiction, involving a level of hysteria, misinformation and downright lies at times.

There is no doubt that what happened over the weekend has focused many minds on this issue. I have done the best I can to come to terms with the facts, based on information that I have tried to gather over the last few days. In doing so, I have ignored the statements from all sides and tried to talk to people on the ground at the airport. It seems to me that there is not a major crisis, although others might say that I would say that. My understanding was that a member of the cleaning staff became concerned when she saw someone on the aircraft in the company of police officers, while others had disembarked. In reporting that to a supervisor, a decision was taken to contact the American Embassy. The embassy was quick to establish the facts of the situation and ascertained information from personnel at the airport. I believe it got the co-operation of airport staff in trying to establish the facts. I welcome that and the pro-active manner in which the embassy dealt with the situation. It is a difficult issue for a foreign mission, dealing with what it sees as a war situation, the army, intelligence agencies and their work.

A further mitigating fact was that the civilian airline flying these soldiers home does not normally transit through Shannon Airport, but through Frankfurt-Hahn in Germany. That airline has done a deal with Shannon Airport to fly the troops via Shannon during the World Cup and in doing so, may not be as clear on the protocols in dealing with the Irish situation. That does not relieve the US Government of its obligation to observe the laws of this land, which we as legislators are proud to enact. The efforts made by the embassy to acknowledge the fact and to try to deal with the information deficit that was there has been welcome. That does not take from the fact that it was unacceptable that our laws were ignored, albeit inadvertently in my view.

There has been an effort to mix this information up with Senator Marty's report released last week. It was unfortunate that the two issues collided. I believe that his report is largely baseless. It is devoid of hard fact and in my view is biased. Senator Norris stated that we were categorised as "category A". The use of a term such as "category A" denotes a level of seriousness in our involvement, but it is quite the inverse. Category A represents a group of airports that only have a minor involvement as a refuelling stop on the return journey from these so-called "missions". There was no major evidence provided, albeit that there is a map that does not look like a spider's web in my view, but more like the map that Ryanair has on its website.

My concern is that there has been an effort to confuse Ireland with being involved in the worst category. The lowest category, D, is where the greatest complications take place, if weight is to be given to that report. I know that many people in this House have spoke on this issue in a genuine way, but I am concerned that an effort is being made to damage the name of Shannon Airport.

A point was made on how we came to our views as part of the Fianna Fáil Party in the Seanad on the establishment of such a committee. I share the sentiments of my colleague, Senator Mooney, as I too have come to my own view on this. I also share the views of the Clare councillors on this issue and I help to inform their attitude from time to time as they look to us for our views as national legislators. We meet regularly and we discuss a range of issues and topics. We agree on some of them and we do not agree with others. They will make their voice heard on issues with which they do not agree. Anybody that has an ongoing relationship with county councillors will recognise that it is often difficult to satisfy their issues on all occasions. We form our own views, but their involvement was helpful in highlighting what they perceived were problems. It would be unfair to suggest that local representatives should not have the right to talk to their national parliamentarians, after all, they are the electorate of the Senate.