Brendan Daly (Fianna Fail)

I too support the amendment and express our appreciation for the presence of the Minister of State. As he said, it is not the first occasion that he has attended the House to discuss this issue. When I was a Member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, sitting on its legal affairs committee, the first reports of rendition appeared in The New York Times, giving rise to international comment. I believe that we made our views clear at the time. There is no need to repeat tonight what we have said on numerous occasions, namely, that we totally oppose anything of that nature. We will not stand for it, since it is against all our principles. It is hardly necessary for me to repeat that.

However, no number of emotional or hysterical speakers such as we have heard tonight can substitute for concrete evidence in this regard. We have been insulted many times by an individual speaker regarding our attitude to this issue. We have been abused and almost ridiculed by him, but like his fellow-travellers who visited Shannon and remained under the bushes with binoculars for several years plane-spotting, he has never produced a scintilla of evidence to support the allegations that he bandies around this House.

In Shannon, people protested not about rendition but about the use of the airport by certain American civilian aircraft to carry soldiers to and from various destinations, breaking down the perimeter fence and causing millions of euro of damage to the airport, attacking aeroplanes and causing millions of dollars of damage to extremely expensive aircraft, and attempting to invade them and put the lives of transit passengers at risk. However, they never produced one scintilla of evidence to support their allegations.

It is also important to state that they have no local support in Shannon. I wish to refute a reference made to the volume of support in various areas. When several attempts were made to block and picket the airport, causing disruption around it, very few people attended. Only three of four turned up with banners for the last protest organised there, and it was obvious that there was no appreciable level of public support or evidence of sympathy for the carry-on that we witnessed at Shannon Airport when certain individuals, including Members of the Oireachtas, organised pickets against American involvement in wars and other activities.

We all condemn the war and wish it to be over as quickly as possible. However, no evidence of rendition has been produced at any stage. As Senator Ormonde said, investigations were carried out numerous times by local security personnel when allegations were made. They went to the authorities, and no evidence whatsoever was found to support them. Time and again we find ourselves dealing with this issue in the House, and it has also been discussed in the European Parliament.

Central to much of the discussion that has taken place recently in Europe was Proinsias De Rossa, MEP, who for a few years served as Minister for Social Welfare in a previous Government. I cannot recollect his making any comment through any medium or in the House about aircraft going through Shannon, and he was a member of the Government at the time, enjoying full access to information regarding such issues. I have consulted the records as far as possible, and to my knowledge he showed no interest in it in any public comments, other than the anti-American propaganda in which he has been engaged for years.

As a member of the Government as Minister for Social Welfare, Proinsias De Rossa, MEP, made no comment regarding American flights going through Shannon. He showed very little or no interest in the matter. It amazes me that he has new-found interests, and perhaps he might explain them. I have knowledge of the area and have not seen Mr. De Rossa in Shannon for many years; I am not even sure whether he has been there in the last ten or 15 years. He can carry on his activities in Europe, and we will pursue ours in Shannon.

I am satisfied that the authorities in Shannon, and the Garda authorities, have all the powers required. If they need legal backing, it is within their remit to investigate flights where there are allegations of wrongdoing. Such CIA flights are civilian rather than military. I believe there is a distinction between military and civilian flights, especially civilian aeroplanes chartered by the authorities to convey soldiers to and from European destinations, which regularly use Shannon.

Those staunchly opposed to the war in Iraq include the German authorities, who have recently been very quick to negotiate a deal for American carriers to pass through Leipzig. A sizeable amount of the business that went through Shannon now goes through that airport. Although they have very strongly criticised the United States' activities in Europe, the German authorities have been quick to seek out opportunities to do business with America where it means dollars for the German economy.

At this stage, perhaps we might invite those interested to come to Shannon, not for the purpose of confrontation, but to speak to the airport authorities, something that they did not do when they last went there to open up banners and placards and protest in front of the airport. They did not have the courtesy to talk to the airport security officers, the management of the airport, or any of the personnel in the development companies. They talked least of all to local people, preferring flying missions into Shannon to unfold banners as publicity stunts with their anti-American fellow-travellers. We do not know why they acted, but their activities certainly did no service to the country or to Shannon Airport.