Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State and his officials to the House. I was quite interested in the Fine Gael contribution. Are we to conclude from it that a Fine Gael-led Government would forthwith ban the use of Shannon Airport by certain categories of US aircraft? It would be important to know the answer to this question.

I do not see any difference between the sides of the House on the substance of the question of extraordinary rendition and holding centres such as Guantanamo and the type of practices carried out at Abu Ghraib. The Government and the Members on this side of the House deplore those practices and look forward to actions that are strictly consistent with the international rule of law.

Senator Ryan in his contribution stated that nobody was alleging that rendition had taken place through Shannon Airport but this argument was rather weakened by his subsequent statements in which he referred to relying on unsubstantiated, unevidenced assurances. His colleague, Senator O'Meara stated that the Irish public neither trusted nor believed the assurances. The Minister for Foreign Affairs was given categorical assurances by the US Secretary of State and this side of the House accepts those assurances. It would be very dangerous to act on a basis which suggested that we were calling into question the good faith of the US Government at the highest level.

I note the motion proposes that we should bring in an immediate ban first and investigate afterwards. I am not sure what an investigation could achieve and what more information is likely to be available to a committee of the House. With all due respect to the European Parliament, it is up to this Parliament to order its business and not to be told by another assembly what committees we should or should not establish.

I note Senator O'Meara's confirmation of the very important role played by a former president of the Labour Party and former leader of Democratic Left and The Workers' Party, Proinsias De Rossa. He is somebody I admire in many respects but whose career has certainly been marked by a very strong streak of anti-Americanism. It is clear there was an attempt to use the European Parliament in an effort to embarrass the Irish Government.

Reference was made to a discredited regime with reference to the Bush Administration. I noted with considerable interest a newsletter circulated recently and presumably for electoral purposes by the mover of this motion, Senator Ryan. It contained a photograph of himself and President Fidel Castro.