The Government today failed on it attempt to stop the European Parliament strongly condemning its failure to inspect planes used by the CIA for the illegal detention and transportation of terror suspects.
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| There are accusations that the CIA directed rendition flights through Shannon Airport |
Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern dismissed the vote and criticised the Parliament's failure to approve a number of amendments softening the criticism of Ireland.
Ireland also failed to gain support for seeking a review of the Chicago Convention which governs international air travel.
Mr Ahern strongly defended Ireland's position today and said he was disappointed the committee had failed to act on his call for a review of civil aviation regulation and the system of flight classification.
He was hopeful of support from other members for a push to have the Chicago Convention reviewed.
"This Committee missed an opportunity to drive real change. If the Committee was less obsessed with political point scoring and more interested in trying to ensure rendition does not happen," Mr Ahern said.
He insisted the report was a "clear implicit recognition that at no stage were prisoners transferred through Irish territory" adding that the 147 flights mentioned in the report "is grossly inflated".
A similar inquiry by the Council of Europe identified only "three suspicious flights" through Ireland, Mr Ahern added.
"The work of the [EU] committee began with the template that two and two equals five and went steadily downhill after that."
During oral hearings, Mr Ahern had angry exchanges with the Rapportuer Claudio Fava over some of the findings which he said were influenced by partisan committee members.
The report was explicitly critical of Mr Ahern, who it says "failed to answer all the questions in relation to the concerns that Irish airports may have been used by CIA aircraft travelling to or from extraordinary rendition missions".
Labour MEP Prionsias De Rossa, who sat on the parliament's temporary committee investigating the rendition programme, accused the Government of attempting a "cynical whitewash".
"Fianna Fail made strenuous efforts to remove key facts and criticisms from the report relating to Ireland and the other EU states which are known to have colluded with the illegal CIA rendition programme," Mr De Rossa said.
MEPs adopted an article which "condemns extraordinary rendition as an illegal instrument used by the United States in the fight against terrorism."
"[It] condemns, further, the acceptance and concealing of the practice, on several occasions, by the secret services and governmental authorities of certain European countries."
It said European countries had been "relinquishing their control over their airspace and airports by turning a blind eye or admitting flights operated by the CIA".
It expressed "serious concern" about 147 CIA rendition flights used Shannon, Knock and Baldonnel airports - making it the third most used state after Germany and the UK.
The text goes on to say it "deplores the stopovers in Ireland of aircraft which have been shown to have been used by the CIA, on other occasions, for the extraordinary rendition of Bisher Al-Rawi, Jamil El-Banna, Abou Elkassim Britel, Khaled El-Masri, Binyam Mohammed, Abu Omar and Maher Arar and for the expulsion of Ahmed Agiza and Mohammed El Zari".
The report was also critical of Ireland's failure to check planes despite being aware of serious concerns. Instead it accepted of diplomatic assurances from Washington that renditions were not happening through Irish airports,.
Additional reporting agencenies