Mary Henry (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and was glad to hear his interesting speech. While no credible voice has been brought forward to suggest prisoners have been brought through Irish airports, there is considerable evidence that aeroplanes which were used for transporting such prisoners have been here, which is a problem because it means we are part of the process. We know torture has been carried out in Jordan, Syria and Egypt and possibly in other countries where these planes have visited before or after landing in Ireland. Nobody has been in a position to state whether prisoners were on the flights because none of the planes was inspected, even though the authorities could inspect the planes if they wanted to. It is fine to be able to state we were given assurances at the highest level of authority that this is not happening but an open invitation to inspect the planes by these high authorities would have been extremely useful. That does not appear to have been forthcoming.

I first raised this matter in the House on 23 June 2004 when speaking on the Transfer of Execution of Sentences Bill 2003. I asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform what would be the situation if untried and un-sentenced people were being brought through Shannon to goodness knows where. He replied:

We have our Constitution and the right of the freedom of the individual is not confined to citizens; it applies to all persons. Therefore, it would cause me grave concern if I thought people were being smuggled through Irish territory in circumstances that amounted to unlawful detention in Irish law or in international law for that matter.

I accept it has not been shown that prisoners are being brought through Shannon but, if we accept the flight numbers given and that the planes are involved in the process of extraordinary rendition, the logistics are being aided.

It is interesting that we do not have a greater sense of self-preservation in this regard. We know great anger is caused in the Muslim world by any idea that people may be associated with extraordinary rendition. I heard the Minister for Education and Science, when in Saudi Arabia, quite rightly welcome that the King Abdullah scholarships are to be extended to Ireland — we hope to have 500 Sunni students come here in the near future to study in our universities. We already have a considerable number of people from that part of the world and have had an extraordinarily good relationship with that region. This is not just through trade or selling beef to Saddam's army and so forth. For decades, people from that part of the world have come here to study medicine, engineering and in scientific areas. I would regret very much if we did not make plain to them that we understand their concerns about what is happening. We have not asked them what they think about the situation. I welcome the fact that the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Dermot Ahern, is currently on a tour of the area and I hope he asks both sides how they feel about the matter. I was glad the Minister attended the proceedings of the European Parliament committee. It was right to do so because we must show that we consider what we are doing correct.

On this issue, it seems it is on the views of one party, the United States of America, that we rely. It is not the Irish people alone who are interested in the issue. I suggest people in the Middle East and in countries such as Sweden and Italy, from where people have been abducted to be brought to third countries for torture, are also interested. I would be glad to be informed of their views on the matter.