CIA flights under Dáil spotlight

Politicians will debate the lack of inspections of CIA flights landing at Shannon Airport when the Dáil meets today.

A Labour party motion on extraordinary rendition is to be raised and debated in the Dáil following last week’s publication of the Council of Europe report which named Ireland as one of 14 countries colluding with the CIA in a spider's web of so-called extraordinary rendition flights.

Michael D Higgins, the Labour Party’s spokesman on foreign affairs, said: “The report from the Rapporteur of the Council of Europe, Dick Marty, exposed the extent to which member states have been complicit in the US Government’s illegal activities in Iraq, by facilitating the transfer of prisoners for torture through their airspace.

“Ireland is named as one of 14 countries involved in such collusion.”

Mr Higgins said he had called on the Government to inspect the planes on several occasions but they had relied on assurances given to them by the US administration.

He said: “In our motion the Labour party expressly calls on the Government to recognise its legal responsibility to ensure that the national territory is not used to facilitate human rights abuses.

“We are also calling for a fully independent investigation into whether or not any agreement – formal or otherwise – was made between Irish and American authorities on these flights.”

The Government has already said there was no new evidence produced in the report and there was no question of any collusion with the CIA or the US authorities.