Air Navigation and Transport (Amendment) Bill 2026: Second Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-10
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Frances Black (IND), Industrial and Commercial Panel

I second the motion. I warmly welcome this Bill and I thank Senator Stephenson and her colleagues for introducing it. I want to start off by asking a simple question. What does it mean to be a neutral country? At a minimum, it means that you do not allow your territory to be used for actions that violate international law. It means that when people are being deported to zones of armed conflict in breach of non- refoulement obligations, they are not refuelled and sent on their way through an Irish airport. That is the bare minimum, and yet, that is precisely what has been happening at Shannon.
According to Amnesty International, as Senator Stephenson has said, US flights using leased civilian aircraft passed through Shannon for five separate ICE removal operations between May 2025 and February 2026. People were removed to the West Bank, an active conflict zone. People were deported to Rwanda and Djibouti, a violation of international human rights law, through an Irish airport with the State effectively powerless to stop it. The reason is a gap that should have been closed years ago, in that only military aircraft required ministerial permission. Customs, police and ICE deportation flights did not. This Bill ends that, extending prior approval to all state aircraft and grounding it in the 1944 Chicago Convention.
Legislation without enforcement is just words on paper. This Bill gives authorised persons, including An Garda Síochána, the power to inspect and detain aircraft and to carry out random searches, and it requires an annual report to both Houses. Ireland, at this moment, cannot speak about international law at the UN while all our airports are used to breach it. We are complicit in it all. This Bill closes that loophole. It says that our neutrality is not a technicality. It is a commitment and it is now time to enforce it.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-06-10/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:02+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-10