Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, has called on the government to prevent armed foreign war planes going to or coming from conflicts landing in Shannon or using Irish airspace.<\/p>\n
Crowe made the call after it was revealed that a US military aircraft armed with fixed weapons landed at Shannon last month, in what is seen as a clear breach of Irish law and government regulations.<\/p>\n
Deputy Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cSince US military aircraft began landing in Shannon, on their way to wage war in Afghanistan and Iraq, Sinn F\u00e9in have consistently called on consecutive governments to follow a policy of neutrality and to stop aiding foreign powers waging brutal and illegal wars.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was ignored by Fianna F\u00e1il led governments, but when this current coalition government came to power there was hope that Labour might force a change in that policy; Labour had previously backed Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Neutrality Bill, which proposed to insert a policy of positive neutrality into the Irish constitution, back in 2003.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdditionally this coalition\u2019s Programme for Government included a commitment to \u2018enforce the prohibition on the use of Irish airspace, airports and related facilities, for purposes not in line with the dictates of international law\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cSinn Fein has continually called on the Foreign Affairs Minister, Eamon Gilmore, to stop these flights. In response he regularly states that landing permission is only granted to foreign military aircraft when they are unarmed, carry no arms, ammunition or explosives, do not engage in intelligence gathering, and when the flights do not form any part of military exercises or operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has no proof that US military landings don\u2019t breach any of these conditions because his government refuses to allow the relevant Garda Authorities to search these suspect planes. Instead he relies on the assurances from the US government that they adhere to all these conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe revelation that a military aircraft was armed with fixed weapon should come as no surprise to people, but the fact that they are continually allowed to land at a civilian airport in a supposedly neutral country should.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis week I received a reply from the Minister to a parliamentary question I submitted on military flights coming into Shannon. In his reply he stated that on board these planes there are \u2018a limited number of military personnel\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cBasically the Minister is saying that these aircraft are not carrying out any intelligence gathering or military exercises or operations, but yet they have military personnel aboard. That just doesn\u2019t add up.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would appear that following these latest incidents that the \u2018assurances\u2019 he has been given are worth little, and by default his government are aiding the war efforts of a foreign military power and undermining Irish neutrality.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese military aircraft landings are clearly breaching the government\u2019s own stated requirements and they must stop immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, has called on the government to prevent armed foreign war planes going to or coming from conflicts landing in Shannon or using Irish airspace. Crowe made the call after it was revealed that a US military aircraft armed with fixed weapons landed at Shannon last month, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,79,80,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-foreign-affairs","category-neutrality","category-shannon","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1038"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1102,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038\/revisions\/1102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}