Mary White (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister to the House. I suspect my colleagues who tabled the motion did so with extraordinary rendition or something similar in mind. We have discussed that issue in the Seanad already this year. I have no doubt that public pressure about suspected flights pushed the Government to request the guarantees it received from the US Administration. If there were flights carrying prisoners or airplanes landing on their way to get prisoners, I am sure they discontinued at that point because of the media and public attention and because of our Ministers raising the matter. I am reiterating a point I made on that day, namely that it was our Minister, Deputy Dermot Ahern, who first raised the matter of extraordinary rendition in Europe.

I agree with Senator Norris's views on US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice — I do not believe a word out of her mouth. I do not mind putting it on the record, that President Bush is the worst American President in the history of the United States.