Air Navigation and Transport (Arms Embargo) Bill 2024 [Seanad]: Report and Final Stages Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-22 ============================================================ Chris Andrews (SF), Labour Panel Sinn Féin fully supports this Bill and the amendments. We commend the Civil Engagement Group on bringing this legislation forward and on progressing it through the House. This Bill needs to be urgently enacted and it would be simply wrong if the Government chose not to support its passage here today. Israel, alongside the United States and Russia, is one of the greatest threats to peace and stability. It threatens to return the world to an era in which might equals right and where human rights are not worth the paper they are printed on. Its genocide perpetrated against the Palestinian people has made a hollow mockery of international law, with thousands killed and displacing many more, while facing next to no consequences from the international community. Practically the whole world has stood idly by as Israel commits unspeakably evil acts in Palestine daily. This is despite the claim that there is a ceasefire. There clearly is no ceasefire. Only Spain and South Africa seem willing to lead by example and to take a stand for human rights on the global stage. Ireland, shamefully, has done next to nothing to stand up against Israel’s fascism, besides offering empty words of sympathy for the Palestinian people and a hugely belated recognition of Palestinian statehood. The Government is constantly gaslighting us about its efforts to stand up for Palestine, but the reality is that it has completely failed to provide leadership on this issue or to deliver any meaningful results. It is disgraceful that the occupied territories Bill has been dropped by this Government and that the Ministers are unable to condemn the illegal war of Netanyahu and Trump in Iran. If Ireland is unwilling to take a stand against Israel’s wars, the very least we should be doing is to make sure we are not complicit in them. This Bill would prohibit the transit of Israeli-bound weapons of war through our airspace. It is simply an obvious step the State urgently needs to take and the Government should be moving quickly to prohibit Ireland’s airspace from being used to transport arms to illegal wars across the globe. This has been made crystal clear in the past week with the revelations that 248 US military flights over Ireland went unreported by the Department of foreign affairs as the result of an administrative error. Honestly, you could not make that stuff up. The Opposition has been saying for years that our airspace and Shannon Airport, in particular, have been used by the United States to support its wars in the Middle East and to directly assist in Israel’s genocide in Palestine. Now, the Government has always insisted it is fully aware of the foreign military flights given permission to travel through our airspace and has given assurances that inspections regularly take place. This failure, though, clearly shows the inability of the State to manage how our airspace is being used. The reality is that Ireland, because of our geographic position, is a crucial link in the logistics link between America and its bases and proxies in the Middle East. A constant stream of soldiers and weapons has passed over us and through our airports and this has accelerated with Israel’s war in Gaza and now the war against Iran and Lebanon. Other EU countries have been very firm that they will not enable the transit of arms to Israel or the use of their airspace to support the war against Iran. Spain and Switzerland have both banned US military aircraft participating in the war against Iran from using their airspace. Ireland, however, has so far refused to take any similar measures with our Ministers preferring to stick their heads in the sand and pretend this issue does not exist, while simultaneously granting thousands of exemptions for US military aircraft to pass over our country. It is unconscionable to me that our airspace would be used to transport weapons to perpetrate genocide in Palestine and in Gaza. If the Government actually cared about justice and human rights, not a single bomb or gun bound for Israel would be allowed to pass through our skies. This Bill is very clear and well thought through. It is a step towards achieving that aim and I hope that the Government changes course quickly and finally acknowledges our complicity in the criminal wars in the Middle East. The US military needs to be out of Shannon Airport and we finally need to stand up and say that Ireland will have no part in Israel’s genocide and in the war of Trump and Netanyahu. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-04-22/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:50+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-22