Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern will on Thursday appear before the European Parliament committee investigating the illegal transport and detention of prisoners by the CIA.
But the Government has decided that it is not appropriate for Attorney General Rory Brady to attend the committee, which is expected to ask questions about 158 CIA flights through Shannon, Dublin and Cork airports between September 12th, 2001 and the end of 2005.
In a preliminary report published this year, the committee found the CIA was indirectly responsible for the "illegal seizure, removal, abduction and detention of terrorist suspects in Europe". However, it has so far failed to produce any revealing evidence supporting allegations of secret CIA prison camps in any EU member states.
MEPs on the committee are expected to quiz Mr Ahern about what safeguards the Government put in place to ensure renditions did not take place through Irish airports. Fine Gael MEP Simon Coveney, who sits on the committee, said it was important that the Minister explain honestly the nature of any agreements it had made with the US authorities.
Many of the CIA flights that stopped in Shannon, Cork and Dublin travelled to destinations linked to the illegal transfer of suspects such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Morocco and Egypt.
One of these flights through Shannon has so far been linked to a rendition flight. On February 17th, 2003, a Gulfstream jet took an Egyptian cleric called Abu Omar, who was kidnapped in Milan, from Italy to Egypt. The aircraft then turned around and flew to Shannon to refuel, arriving at 5.52am on February 18th, according to records from Eurocontrol, the agency responsible for European airspace.
Mr Ahern will appear just two days after the chairman of the Irish Human Rights Commission, Maurice Manning, delivers his verdict on the Government's actions. Mr Manning, who will appear before the committee today, will outline the commission's concerns that the Government is not complying with its own constitutional and international human rights obligations by not instituting an effective and legally enforceable inspection and monitoring regime of CIA aircraft using Irish airports.
A commission document circulated to MEPs this week clearly states Ireland has an obligation to prevent rendition, and not just seek and accept the non-legally binding assurances from the US administration on the issue.
In his public comments on CIA rendition and the use of Shannon airport by CIA planes, Mr Ahern has consistently said that the US has given the Government guarantees that its airports are not used to transport prisoners.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs said yesterday he was looking forward to attending the committee. "Ireland has a proud record in this area and I look forward to restating our total abhorrence of secret detentions and extraordinary rendition."