I move:
That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to prohibit U.S. military aircraft, or civil aircraft carrying munitions of war, from landing in the State.
I am very pleased to introduce this important Bill. Its purpose is very simple: to stop the scandalous use of Shannon Airport as a de facto US military base. It does this by instating a very simple and clear prohibition on US military aircraft, and US civil aircraft carrying munitions of war, from landing in the State.
Why are we singling out the US in this way? Because it is the one using Shannon Airport as a military base. It is the one using Shannon to prosecute illegal wars of aggression and genocide around the world. No other country on earth has such a bloody and infamous track record. Perhaps the only good thing Donald Trump has done as US President is to rename the US Department of Defense the Department of War, because that is what it has always been. Since 1945, the US has invaded or militarily intervened in 96 countries. Since 2001, when the US use of Shannon Airport escalated, the US has engaged in three full-scale wars, bombed at least ten countries, directly killed close to a million people, and injured and indirectly killed many millions more. The US likes to portray itself as the world's policeman; in reality, it has always been the world's worst terrorist, a terrorist that we are aiding and abetting by allowing it to use Shannon Airport.
According to figures collated by Shannonwatch, 3.178 million US troops passed through Shannon Airport between 2002 and July 2024. Recent US military flights from Shannon have included Omni Air N378AX, which landed at Shannon Airport on 25 June, coming from US Pope Army Air Field, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. It took off on 26 June and flew on to Sofia, Bulgaria. It then flew from Sofia to south-west Jordan. US Air Force C-40B No. 01-0041 landed in Shannon at about 9.22 p.m. on 24 June, coming from MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, and flew on to Tel Aviv. The destinations of these flights show that they are using Shannon Airport as a pit stop on their way to take part in illegal US-Israeli wars in the Middle East. They are using Shannon to refuel before heading on to Lebanon and Palestine to bomb, to maim and to murder innocent civilians, including over 20,000 Palestinian children killed and more than 44,000 injured since the latest phase of the genocide began in October 2023.
The use of Shannon Airport in this way has made us complicit in every illegal US war in recent decades. Every time the US launches another illegal war, the numbers of US troops and US flights passing through Shannon increase significantly. During the war in Iraq, numbers climbed from 76,500 in 2002 to over 125,000 in 2003. They peaked at over 340,000 in 2005, one of the bloodiest years of the war.
All of this is in obvious violation of our status as a neutral state. It is in clear breach of international law. The 1907 Hague Convention (V) on neutrality states:
Belligerents are forbidden to move troops or convoys of either munitions of war or supplies across the territory of a neutral Power.
Why, then, have successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments permitted the world's most notorious belligerent, the rogue state that is the US not only under Trump but also under every previous US President, to have essentially free and unfettered access to Shannon Airport? The answer is the same as for every example of cowardice, every new instance of craven bootlicking by our quisling Government and the previous ones. Micheál Martin, Simon Harris, Helen McEntee and the rest of the Government will literally stop at nothing to maintain and attract US foreign direct investment, so much so that they would probably take that statement as a compliment. Sucking up to US power is the pinnacle of the political ambition of every establishment TD in the House. We saw it here with the visit of President Biden, with TDs embarrassing themselves by fawning over him despite his also being a war criminal like every US President before and since. It will be the same with the visit of President Trump if he comes in September: right-wing politicians attracted to power no matter how disgusting that power is.
This Bill attempts to place some small limits on US power, to carve out a space for Irish neutrality, to say, "No, you cannot use our country, our independent State, to launch your unprovoked wars and to murder innocent people."