The Government's position on the use of Shannon Airport by the US was described as "morally bankrupt" by Mr John Gormley (Green Party, Dublin South East).
He said that Aer Rianta statistics for the first quarter of this year showed a dramatic increase in US troops stopping over at the airport.
"A total of 35,926 troops went through Shannon, down only 9 per cent from the first quarter of 2003, when the US was gearing up for the war in Iraq. This shows we are not at the end of a war, but in the middle of a worsening situation."
Mr Gormley said the Government's position on Iraq had always been highly suspect. "The Minister, Mr Cowen, justified the war by saying that the aim was to remove a tyrant. However, for the Government, Saddam Hussein has not always been a tyrant. If we are to believe Liam Lawlor, the only problem in Iraq before this was that Ned O'Keeffe did not get up early enough in the morning to conclude the big deals."
Dr Jerry Cowley (Independent, Mayo) said he did not know how President Bush slept in his bed at night.
"Last night, on RTÉ News, we saw the horrible sight of at least 40 Iraqis being killed in a remote Iraqi village. They were attending a family wedding."
Mr Joe Higgins (Socialist Party, Dublin West) said there was a "criminal conspiracy" by the imperial powers - Britain and the United States - represented in the invasion of Iraq.
"It was not out of any consideration for the Iraqi people, but to seize control of Iraqi oil and establish a military bridgehead in the Middle East for these imperial powers. The invasion of Iraq was carried out on foot of a monstrous lie: the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction by the Hussein dictatorship. That lie was faithfully repeated by the major sections of the capitalist media throughout the world and slavishly repeated by the Taoiseach, his Minister for Foreign Affairs and by this Government," Mr Higgins said.
