The US ambassador to Ireland, James Kenny, is to be invited to appear before an Oireachtas committee to answer allegations that the CIA has illegally transported prisoners through Shannon airport. Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent, reports.
The Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, former cabinet minister and Fianna Fáil TD Michael Woods, will formally issue the invitation today to Mr Kenny.
The committee's move comes amid growing international concern over the process known as "rendition", following reports that the CIA has been operating secret prisons in Europe for terrorism suspects.
President George Bush said yesterday that the US did not secretly move terrorism suspects to foreign countries that used torture in order to get information.
"We do not render to countries that torture. That has been our policy and that policy will remain the same," Mr Bush told reporters.
US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice is currently on a visit to Europe where she is seeking to reassure allies about US handling of terrorism suspects.
In the Dáil yesterday, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern insisted that the Government "cannot and will not allow" CIA-controlled aircraft to land in the State if they are carrying prisoners. He said the Government has raised its concerns "at the highest levels" with the Bush administration in Washington.
"Ireland accepts the repeated assurances given by the government of the United States. The US authorities know the importance we attach to these assurances," he said.
"If the United States secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, gives us assurances, I must accept them," Mr Ahern told Labour leader, Pat Rabbitte.
Under the 1944 Chicago Convention, states are entitled to search civilian aircraft at their airports, contrary to the points made by Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform Michael McDowell on Monday.
Last night, Prof William Schabas, director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland, Galway, called on the Government to stop CIA flights landing in Shannon.
On Monday, he said, the US secretary of state had "strengthened the presumption that something funny is going on" when she acknowledged that "rendition" flights took place and that they had saved civilians from terrorist attacks.
The Government, he said, had a duty to guarantee that people are not transported through Shannon for torture elsewhere, or else "it has a duty to tell the Americans that they cannot land, and they should go somewhere else".
The US embassy in Dublin last night said it would seek "guidance from Washington" before a decision is made about whether ambassador Kenny appears before the Oireachtas committee. During a debate on the flights and the Iraqi war, Senator David Norris said Ireland shared many values with the US "but those values have been betrayed and traduced in the US".