Diplomatic assurances from the US on so-called extraordinary rendition were "just nods and winks", president of the Irish Human Rights Commission Maurice Manning told the Association of European Journalists yesterday in Dublin.
He said he was not satisfied with the European Parliament report on the issue and said it contained "a lot of political point-scoring".
Mr Manning said a lot of groups had approached the commission to ask if Ireland was in breach of its international human rights obligations in relation to rendition, the practice whereby prisoners are allegedly transported to Guantanamo Bay and other places of detention by CIA aircraft. The commission had come to the conclusion that Ireland was not necessarily in breach of such agreements as the Convention for the Prevention of Torture, "but that it was necessary to find out the end result of its facilitating these planes through Shannon".
Diplomatic assurances were not sufficient to meet Ireland's human rights obligations although Mr Manning said the Department of Foreign Affairs was annoyed at this suggestion.
"They never agreed with us and they still don't agree," he said. But a dialogue was being arranged between the commission and the department to establish common ground.
Mr Manning appeared before a European Parliament committee investigating rendition. "We weren't into confrontation with government," he said. It was the commission's opinion that these diplomatic assurances don't exist and are "just nods and winks".
On the issue of An Garda Síochána's attitude to human rights, Mr Manning said a report was being prepared for the commission on the level of human rights compliance in the force. "The Police Service of Northern Ireland is a model as far as human rights compliance is concerned," he said. "They now believe it makes for better policing." The PSNI was ahead of An Garda Síochána in this respect.
On the case of the convicted murderer Malcolm Macarthur, who is seeking release from prison after 25 years, the commission had investigated whether he was being denied proper procedures. "We came to the conclusion that he was," Mr Manning said, adding that the Parole Board should be established on a statutory basis.
The rendition issue was also addressed yesterday by the Labour MEP for Dublin, Proinsias De Rossa, who issued a call for a Dáil inquiry on the matter. "Only an all-party Dáil inquiry can do the necessary forensic work which it demonstrated it can do so effectively in a number of recent inquiries," he said.
Mr De Rossa was speaking in advance of a public meeting which he organised at the European Parliament offices in Molesworth Street, Dublin, to discuss the issue. "The 147 CIA flights, which the European Parliament's committee of inquiry has established have used Irish airports since September 2001, have serious implications not only for Irish human rights," he said.