Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "noting that" and substituting the following:

"the Government have on numerous occasions voiced their complete opposition to the practice of so-called 'extraordinary rendition';

the Government have responded urgently from the outset to allegations of extraordinary rendition, including by consistently raising the matter at high level with the US authorities from the very earliest stage, and through the Minister for Foreign Affairs' urging that the EU pursue the issue actively with the US;

the Government have in this context received categorical assurances, confirmed by the Secretary of State of the United States, of a particular clarity;

the Government have cooperated to the very fullest extent with the investigation carried out by the European Parliament's Temporary Committee on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transport and illegal detention of prisoners (TDIP Committee) and that the Minister for Foreign Affairs was one of only two Ministers for Foreign Affairs to agree to attend the TDIP Committee's proceedings;

contrary to the apparent misconception of the TDIP Committee, it is not for the Government to direct the work of the Oireachtas; that these issues have been extensively debated in both Houses of the Oireachtas; that Seanad Éireann has on two occasions voted not to institute a specific enquiry, and that on 14 June 2006, Dáil Éireann passed a motion supporting the Government's policy in this area;

commends the Government for its full cooperation with the work of the TDIP Committee;

emphasises that the TDIP Committee implicitly recognises that no prisoners were transferred through Irish territory in violation of the clear and categorical assurances received from the US authorities;

expresses serious concern about the opaque manner in which the TDIP Committee reached an inflated figure of suspicious aircraft;

rejects the TDIP Committee's unsubstantiated and misleading suggestion that the Minister for Foreign Affairs failed to answer all the questions put to him in relation to concerns that Irish airports may have been used by CIA aircraft travelling to or from extraordinary rendition missions;

regrets that the Report does not more fully examine practical ways in which extraordinary rendition might be deterred or prevented in future;

regrets in particular that the proposal by the Minister for Foreign Affairs that the Chicago Convention might be reviewed to take account of the enormous developments in civil aviation since its conclusion in 1944, so as to require the filing of more information about private civilian flights, is nowhere reflected in the Report;

favours continuing dialogue between the Irish Commission of Human Rights and the Department of Foreign Affairs on the international law issues involved, as proposed by the Minister for Foreign Affairs to the Commission in July 2006; and

commends the Government for its policy of early and proactive engagement with the US authorities and for having taken appropriate and practicable steps to ensure that the territory and facilities of this State are not used for illicit purposes and especially not for human rights violations by any other state."

I agree with one premise that has been put forward by the other side of the House on this issue. All of us, without qualification, are concerned at what has been alleged to have happened and what seems to have happened in terms of abductions and kidnappings outside the rule of law. No one of us in this or the other House has a monopoly of concern on the rendition issue.

It is interesting that the theme of the contributions by the proposer and seconder of the motion is that somehow Ireland's reputation as a country that defends human rights has been tarnished. Perhaps I can put something on the record to answer that. The first report that appeared was a Council of Europe parliamentary assembly report, not a European Union one, which did not in any way implicate Ireland directly. It did state that aeroplanes had landed but it did not engage the Irish Government in complicity with rendition.

I commend the report to all Members, including the proposer and seconder of the motion, because it is far superior to the European Union report which followed on as an afterthought, in a turf war between the European Union and the Council of Europe, which implied that the Council of Europe represents only 46 member states across Europe and that the European Union is more important than the Council of Europe. I say that as a proud and privileged member of the Irish delegation.

Last week at the plenary session of the parliamentary assembly I had the honour of being unanimously voted as chairman of the human rights committee of the Council of Europe.