The Foreign Affairs Committee of the Oireachtas is to consider two motions on the treatment of al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects held in US custody. Drafts from the committee chairman, Mr Desmond O'Malley of the Progressive Democrats, and the Labour spokesman on Foreign Affairs, Mr Michael D Higgins, will be circulated over the next few days.
The matter is scheduled to come before the committee on Wednesday.
The motion from Mr Higgins calls for the principles of international law, including the Geneva Convention, to be applied at Camp X-Ray.
Although the text of Mr O'Malley's motion was not available, he told the committee yesterday the issue had been "exercising a great deal of opinion in the world".
At first he thought reports about the treatment of the prisoners were exaggerated but photographs indicated they were not.
Noting that these were "official, not clandestine" photographs, he said he found them "rather upsetting". Mr Higgins said everyone was degraded by the sight of people hooded, earmuffed and with their beards shaven off, contrary to their Muslim beliefs.
He recalled the case the government had taken against Britain in the early 1970s over sensory deprivation of prisoners in Northern Ireland.
The former Fine Gael minister for agriculture, Mr Austin Deasy, said: "These people are not altar-boys, they are fanatics."
The Americans had the right to defend themselves. He was sure the Guantanamo Bay prisoners were being treated "much better" than the prisoners held by the Germans and Japanese during the second World War.
Meanwhile the European Parliament President, Mr Pat Cox, expressed concern yesterday about prison conditions at the Cuban base.
Responding to the photos showing Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners blindfolded and shackled at the detention facility, Mr Cox said the US must make every effort to protect the rights of detainees.
"The question can be asked as to whether this treatment is really a form of torture," Mr Cox told French radio station BFM.
Mr Cox said it was important for the EU to keep pressurising Washington to ensure "the war on terrorism is always based on the right values". - (Additional reporting by AFP)