It cost the State more than €27,000 per week last year to provide security to US military aircraft and personnel passing through Shannon airport.

General Martin Dempsey, an Irish-American member of the US military bowed out in style recently.

The deputy leader of the so-called Islamic State militant group has been killed in a US military air strike in Iraq, a spokesman for the Obama administration said.

A US military air-to-air refuelling aircraft has made an emergency landing at Shannon Airport this afternoon.

A TD has used Dáil privilege to claim that US military personnel have carried weapons on aircraft travelling through Shannon Airport.