Government allowed Shannon missile stopover

THE Government sanctioned the passage of a consignment of 28 Patriot missiles through Shannon Airport, official documents seen by the Irish Examiner reveal.

According to official Government documents, the hi-tech precision weapons designed to intercept incoming ballistic missiles were dispatched from Israel to the US in June 2001. The civilian cargo plane carrying the munitions landed in Shannon for a planned "technical stopover".

Each missile contained 44kg of high explosives and 498kg of rocket fuel. Despite the dangerous nature of the cargo, four separate Government departments raised no objections nor made any detailed comment.

Documents released to the defence teams of peace activists facing criminal charges over Shannon protests show the Departments of Defence, Justice and Foreign Affairs made no objections to the flight before permission was granted by the then Minister for Public Enterprise, Mary O'Rourke.

Details of the flight were confirmed last night by the Department of Transport, which has now taken over the role of licensing air traffic involving military troops and equipment. "If there are no objections, then the department will generally grant permission to land," a department spokesman said. The spokesman confirmed no objections had been raised.

However, a Government source revealed that up to a few dozen requests for landings of aircraft containing assorted armaments cargoes were sanctioned annually.

Government communications seen by the Irish Examiner also reveal permission was granted to two flights containing a possible cargo of cruise missiles during the Kosovo conflict in 1999, while another flight containing class A explosives was allowed land during Desert Storm in 1991.

Further documents reveal the Department of Public Enterprise knew that US troops in Shannon were accompanied by their personal weapons and ammunition as far back as five years ago.

Green party chairman John Gormley accused the Government of deliberately misleading the public. And Labour's Michael D Higgins said it confirmed that our policy of neutrality had been secretly ditched even before the row surrounding Shannon.