Air Navigation and Transport (Arms Embargo) Bill 2024 [Seanad]: Report and Final Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-22
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Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland

I am very interested in the Government's perspective in relation to this because this is the lacuna that we have heard about. I provided a list of examples of some of the kinds of flights involved. We are being told that these flights are going over our heads and being asked what we are going to do. The question the Minister posed was how we would enforce this if the Bill becomes law.. Simply inserting the phrase "or over the State" into Article 8 of the order, that is the Air Navigation (Carriage of Munitions of War, Weapons and Dangerous Goods) Order 1973, and addressing the question closes the gap which currently exists. I would like the Minister of State's comments on the gap - I had some engagement from the Department on it - which currently exists in the law and which is enabling commercial aircraft to illegally carry weapons through Irish airspace without the necessary permissions.
This is not just that the weapons are being carried to illegal wars but that the flights themselves are illegally carrying weapons because in some cases they are not even seeking permissions. On Committee Stage, the Minister asked what we could do and how we could enforce the provisions of this Bill. The answer is that the powers are already there in existing legislation. We do not need to police our skies. We do not need to be sending jets up to drive them to the ground. We simply need to make it clear that these flights are in breach of our law and have in place actions that we can take. That would involve issuing instructions to flights suspected to be operating in contravention of the 1973 order that, on the basis of an order the Minister could issue, they must land for inspection. If they fail to comply with an instrument of the Air Navigation and Transport Act 1946, upon which the 1973 Act builds, then the owner or hirer of an aircraft will be deemed to have contravened that instrument. We move to a situation where rather than saying that a flight went overhead, that we are worried that it was in contravention and that it refused to land and submit to inspection, we can know that it in contravention and continue to take appropriate actions.
As I said, some of these flights are not shadowy. These are companies such as Lufthansa and FedEx, which can be made answerable in relation to a breach of the order. Under this Bill, such contravention would now therefore be clear. Therefore, I would like the Government's position on amendment No. 7. It is a really key one.

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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