Private Members Motion - Human Rights Issues - 31st January 2007

Private Members Motion - Human Rights Issues - 31st January 2007

Mr. Norris: What about those who placed bombs on a commercial airliner with the assistance of the CIA?
Dr. Mansergh: -----which was condemned by Amnesty International and writers on Latin America.
Mr. Norris: Did the Senator prefer Batista and the barons of the drug cartels?
Dr. Mansergh: While I do not doubt the idealism of Senator Ryan, a strand in the European left is blind when it comes to the question of double standards. I am shocked the Senator would be pictured with the leader of a discredited regime which is holding back the country over which it rules. It is almost as if we would prefer a socialist dictator who offers no chance of democratic change to a capitalist democrat who will, without question, leave office in January 2009.
Mr. Norris: President Bush will probably be impeached before that date.
I welcome this debate and commend the Labour Party for tabling the motion; it has done the House a service. I have been involved in this area for some time, having proposed the establishment of a committee of inquiry into renditions. Although my proposal was agreed in the House, it was later sabotaged in a most astonishing and regrettable manner.
It is worth pointing out that it was I who reported matters to the Garda Commissioner. As a result, two senior officers were sent to meet me. I brought Deputy Michael D. Higgins of the Labour Party with me to the meeting as a witness. The officers flatly contradicted statements by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Dermot Ahern, about the right to enter aircraft. It is precisely to investigate in this jurisdiction conflicts of evidence of this kind that such a committee should be established. It would also enable us to amend the law if necessary.
When it emerged that the Minister would appear before the committee of investigation established by the European Parliament I wrote a letter to its chairman enclosing correspondence between myself and the Department of the Foreign Affairs and reports of the House. I indicated that I hoped the documentation would enable the committee to prevent the Minister for Foreign Affairs from claiming he was unaware of what was taking place because I and Members of the Other House had ensured the Government was aware of what was taking place.
The Minister of State, Deputy Treacy, should note remarks I made on the Order of Business regarding the amendment, which I described as a disgrace. I also noted it was not written by the Leader, in whose name it had appeared on the Order Paper. I hope images of her nodding vigorously when I described it as a tissue of lies, evasion and hypocrisy will be shown on television. At least Senator O’Rourke has a few standards and some decency.
I will explain the reason I described the amendment in those terms. The second paragraph states that the Government responded urgently from the outset to allegations of extraordinary rendition. That is a downright lie. The Government equivocated and avoided answering questions. The fourth paragraph states the Government co-operated to the very fullest extent with the investigation carried by the European Parliament’s temporary committee. It did not do so. For God’s sake, on what planet are we living? Co-operation only occurs when both sides agree it occurred. The TDIP committee’s report makes perfectly clear that the Minister did not co-operate, refused to answer questions and answered questions he was not asked. The Government engaged in a stalling exercise throughout, yet this lying motion blandly states it co-operated fully. Let us at least have the truth.
The fifth paragraph states that contrary to the apparent misconception of the TDIP committee, it is not for the Government to direct the work of the Oireachtas. Of course it is for the Government to do so. This debate is a classic of how this is done and I should not have to tell Ministers that the Government directs the Oireachtas. While the Houses may have an appearance of independence, every vote is directed. It cannot be denied, for example, that the committee democratically instituted in this House was collapsed by a division directed by Government in which Senators voted against their consciences because they were whipped.
Dr. Mansergh: The House did not agree to the committee.
Mr. Norris: It is a disgrace to commend the Government for its full co-operation. The amendment also expresses serious concern about the “opaque manner” in which the TDIP committee reached an inflated figure of suspicious aircraft and commends the Government for its policy of early and proactive engagement with the US authorities. What rubbish.
Condoleeza Rice is a busted flush and liar, as is George Bush. I have never been stopped from describing them as such in the House. These words have also been used in the British Parliament and Congress in Washington, while American citizens have stood outside the White House in recent days with banners emblazoned with the same words. The reason is that Ms Rice and President Bush are liars, and with poll ratings of 28% President Bush is a busted flush. This is a man who wanted to legitimise torture. The reason his Administration regards torture as legal is that Ms Condoleeza Rice, if she is a woman, stated during the bloodbath in Lebanon that what we were witnessing was the birth pangs-----
Dr. Mansergh: Could we avoid raising questions of sexual identity?
Mr. Norris: If the Senator is intelligent enough to listen, instead of smirking and giggling, I will explain. The reason I call into question Condoleeza Rice’s intellectual or emotional gender identity was her description of the bloodbath unleashed by the Americans and Israelis in Lebanon as the birth pangs of democracy. I reserve the right to question the fundamental humanity and decency of a person who would use such a phrase to describe the catastrophe unleashed in Lebanon. If Senators believe Condoleeza Rice they are very foolish.
How are we anti-American when we are on the same side as the American people and Congress? The fools on the other side have aligned themselves with a discredited element in one of the worst governments the United States has ever had and its worst ever presidency. The introduction of the TDIP committee’s report states that the prohibition of torture is a peremptory norm of international law - jus cogens - from which no derogation is possible. Again and again, the current United States Administration has defended torture and techniques such as water-boarding perfected by the Gestapo.
The Government’s position is that there is no evidence that rendition took place through Ireland. I would like the Minister and Senators on the other side to admit that it has been proved incontrovertibly that aeroplanes, which were known and numbered and whose records I have placed on the record of the House, passed through Irish airspace. These aircraft, for example, an aeroplane with the registration number N379P, were associated with rendition and nothing else. When we named and shamed it the registration was changed. These aeroplanes were refuelled in Shannon Airport as they returned directly from rendition. Is this not assistance? Are Senators on the other side speaking English? Are they capable of moral feeling? It disgusts me that the motion should be amended in such an insupportable and disgraceful manner.
The TDIP committee’s findings as regards Ireland are very clear and attempts to turn the debate on them into some petty, parochial, cabbage patch row are disingenuous in the extreme. Do the Senators opposite seriously believe that Proinsias De Rossa is running the European Parliament? A majority was achieved in a democratic assembly and all the Government side can find is some obscure republican plot, which ill comes from the Senators opposite. The committee called on the Irish Government to institute a parliamentary inquiry. Such an inquiry was established but destroyed for the most petty and parochial of reasons.
6 o’clock
We know torture is taking place and that the Americans approve of it. We also know the United States Supreme Court is blenching at this moral obliquity. We know of the appalling conditions in the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prison camps. We now know, thanks to the investigative reporters of the BBC, the locations of the black sites - the denied torture camps - in Poland. I have a document detailing names, dates and places, which I will send to the Minister. It transpires that our own friendly, executive jet, N379P, turns up again at this named but unpronounceable airport in Poland. What does the Minister of State have to say about that? We know about torture. A report in The Irish Times today indicates that torture is endemic in Jordan. King Abdullah is a decent and honourable man. He has tried to get some of these prisons closed down but the situation is endemic. The Americans used us as an assistant in the outsourcing of torture, which is to our eternal shame. Part of the argument was that jobs at Shannon Airport were more important than standards. What a lamentable and stupid idea. I voted against the beef deals in Iraq and I was told from the Government side of the House that while I was saying the moral thing, we could not afford it. We did not do it but we got stung because we were still owed €100 million. We did the lousy thing and got stung, and we are doing it again now. We are also doing it with China because the smell of money is so rich in the nostrils in the people who are running this country. It is a profound disgrace. There are decent people on the Government side of the House who share the same ideas, but they are whipped into line and that is why this report is right. The Government is running this House, telling people of conscience what to do and how to vote. It is a pity they do not have the guts to remember their own alleged republicanism.
Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (Mr. Treacy): I welcome the opportunity to address the Seanad once again on this issue and I encourage Senators to support the proposed amendment. As the House will recall, on two previous occasions last year, in March and again in June, I had the privilege of addressing Seanad Éireann on the subject of extraordinary rendition. The debate has progressed considerably since then to the extent that no credible voice is any longer suggesting that prisoners have been brought through Irish airports.
Mr. Norris: No one ever did.
Mr. Treacy: Yes, the Senator did.
Mr. Norris: That is more of the evasion and the lies.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach: The Minister of State without interruption.
Mr. Treacy: I am almost overcome by the ginormous verbosity of the Senator’s pompous wisdom, describing us as fools smelling money in our nostrils.
Mr. Norris: The Minister of State should be writing Finnegans Wake.
Mr. Treacy: I have heard of nobody in this House who is not anxious to draw their monthly salary, or anybody on this island who is not anxious to be gainfully employed. Why should they not be? If the wisdom and leadership of this party in co-operation with our colleagues in the Progressive Democrats continue to allow the nation to grow an economy that creates an opportunity for our people’s intellectual talent to be continuously engaged in developing the nation, then why should we not be interested in the wellbeing of our people? What is wrong with that? I take exception to-----
Mr. Norris: Will the Leas-Chathaoirleach ask the Minister of State what question he is replying to because I do not have the faintest idea?
Mr. Treacy: I am replying to the insinuation by the Senator that he believes this side of the House does not have the ability to continue to lead this nation in the interests of all our people, for the common good and global welfare, including the European Union.
Mr. Norris: That is rubbish. I said he was selling out to torturers and that is what he has done.
Mr. Ryan: We know he is not up to the job.
Mr. Norris: He is a decent man but he has been stuck in like a patsy.
Mr. Treacy: God help the nation if those got the job.
The investigations carried out by the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and in special cases by An Garda Síochána, have uncovered absolutely no evidence to suggest prisoners might have been transferred, through Irish airports, in contravention of the categorical assurances, which we have received from the US authorities, in this area.
Mr. Norris: Having committed these appalling acts, the jets were refuelled with the connivance of the Irish authorities.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach: The Minister of State without interruption.
Mr. Treacy: Notwithstanding this, our Government has continued its proactive approach to this matter. I will begin by outlining the Government’s position in this area. I will then address the recent report by the European Parliament’s temporary committee investigating extraordinary rendition and, finally, I will describe to Senators some of the forward looking proposals that have been made by our Government in respect of this matter. At the outset, however, I wish to reiterate once again, the Government’s complete opposition to the practice of extraordinary rendition.
Mr. Norris: While it facilitates it.