Seanad report: The leader of the House, Ms Mary O'Rourke, said she had been unable to get satisfactory answers to questions about a US jet aircraft allegedly carrying kidnapped prisoners which had passed through Shannon on a number of occasions. She told Mr David Norris (Ind) that she would continue her efforts to get a full response to his queries.
Mr Norris warned that if he did not get answers today he would have to step up his demands for the information. He said it had been wildly stated that this Gulf Stream aircraft had been adapted to facilitate the transport of kidnapped prisoners to destinations where they might be subjected to torture at the behest of the US Central Intelligence Agency.
Since Shannon was being used, he believed they were entitled to information on the level of usage, and whether the Garda had availed of its powers to board this plane and search it.
"I think it is vital that we have this information in the light of the behaviour of the allied forces in Iraq, where they appear now to be driving tanks over wounded people in the streets of Falluja, where there is no doubt that they are murdering unarmed people inside mosques. Can you imagine what would happen if somebody attacked a church and shot people dead - unarmed, elderly people?"
***
If the Government were refusing, because of cost reasons, to re-route part of the M3 away from Tara, they were philistines, Mr Shane Ross (Ind) said.
He was speaking on an Independents' motion asking the Seanad to state it was appalled by the prospect of a motorway being constructed through archaeologically important sites near the Hill of Tara. Mr Joe O'Toole (Ind) said that whoever it was at the National Roads Authority who defined the Hill of Tara as a hilltop - and it appeared to him that that was what had been done - was dangerously ignorant of the reality of the area.
Mr Ivor Callely, Minister of State at the Department of Transport, said he understood every effort had been made to minimise the impact of the project on local communities and on the natural and archaeological heritage.
***
The Israeli ambassador should be summoned by the Department of Foreign Affairs to hear this country's views on the recent cold-blooded murder of a young Palestinian girl by the Israeli Defence Forces, Mr Brendan Ryan (Lab) said. The Israeli authorities had exonerated the army officer who had been seen by his own troops shooting 13-year-old Iman al-Hams, in Rafah, last month. Radio transcripts demonstrated that this had been a deliberate, cold-blooded murder, added Mr Ryan.
"If a Palestinian had done it, we would quite rightly condemn it, and the whole world would be demanding sanctions against the Palestinian authorities because of their failure to control terrorists. And the world would be right. But the world stands back in silence when a terrified child running away from one of the most powerful defence forces in the world is murdered in cold blood, because it is done by somebody with which we really have at best an ambiguous relationship."