Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Like many, I have been watching nightly what is going on in America with the newly-elected President Trump. Sometimes I wonder if it is a nightmare I will wake up from or is it reality. Unfortunately, it is very real. For many years I have taken a position on the US military use of Shannon Airport and believe that it is not appropriate that the US military should have free access to Shannon. There should be inspections and even as a councillor I tabled motions on that issue in Clare County Council, all of which were defeated, which was not surprising. Now that the newly-elected President has made clear that certain forms of torture are quite appropriate in his view and that he would endorse their use, we need to have extreme inspections of military planes using Shannon. The time is appropriate to have a debate on whether it is appropriate for the US military to use Shannon.