Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming in this morning. It is much appreciated. I want to ask him about Shannon Airport and his Department's policy with regard to the 427 permits approved under the Air Navigation (Carriage of Munitions of War, Weapons and Dangerous Goods) Order 1973. Some 427 permits have been issued so far this year, from January to the end of May. Some 149 of these permits were for flights with personal weapons of troops on board, landing at Shannon Airport. These were all US military-contracted planes. Where were these US troops and their weapons of war going? Some 44 were going to Kuwait. As the Minister knows, Kuwait is landlocked between Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It is a geopolitical pawn being used by the US and its allies in the Middle East to invade and control the region. Three flights were to Turkey, three were to Jordan, two were to Saudi Arabia, two were to the UAE, two were to Qatar and two were to Bahrain.

Interestingly, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain are all parts of the Saudi-led coalition waging war against the Yemeni people. Does the Minister think it is a coincidence that these are the destinations for these US troops? The ongoing conflict in Yemen began in 2015. To date, 16,000 people have died, including 10,000 civilians. Saudi intervention has seen widespread bombing of civilian areas, which has been condemned by the international community. Almost 10 million Yemenis have been deprived of food and electricity during the conflict. Some 13 million are without clean water. Some 2.4 million Yemenis are homeless due to bombing and 120,000 have sought asylum. These are UN statistics. Saudi airstrikes have been condemned as war crimes. Displacing medical camps, use of excessive force against protestors and journalists, and the bombing of densely-populated civilian areas have all been catalogued by Human Rights Watch.

I know that 19 permits were refused by the Minister's Department, and I know he has said that this shows that the system of permits under the 1973 order is not just a rubber stamp, and that all permits go through a consultation process and are stamped "seen by the Minister". Will the Minister tell us what the consultation process consists of? What does the Minister actually do or not do? For example, if this system is not a rubber stamp, then presumably he will be able to tell us what these US military personnel are doing in Kuwait. We know from many sources that there are 15,000 US troops in Kuwait and that the US military, as well as providing logistical and strategic support from Kuwait to the Saudi coalition for its war of terror, has also been engaged in bombing missions in Syria and ongoing missions in Iraq. Surely, if this Government is serious about defending our neutrality, the Minister will be able to enlighten us this morning about the rigours of this consultation process.

Since 2002, over 2.5 million US troops have used Shannon Airport on the way to their wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. To be fair, I do not believe that the Minister believes that he is upholding our neutrality. I say that because of what he said just two years ago in the Dáil, and is in the Official Report, 6 March 2015, vol. 870, col. 10:

Deputies Mick Wallace and Clare Daly are right, surely the Minister should have expressed concern about the apparent activities of the United States at Shannon Airport. Instead, he is silent and we are cowed. We are not a neutral nation; we are a neutered nation.

The Minister went on to say:

let us recognise the fact that we are bowing to American pressure, whether tacit or real, because we are economically dependent on the multinationals. That is what the Government should recognise and it should admit that this is the reason for its silence.

Will the Minister admit that that is the reason for our silence and complicity?