A group that monitors military aircraft movements at Shannon Airport has claimed the Department of Foreign Affairs has refused to answer questions under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) in case it damages relations with the United States (US).
ShannonWatch has claimed that department has said they will not provide records requested under FOI because it would hamper the international relations of the State.
In total four freedom of information requests have been refused by Department of Foreign Affairs. The requests sought lists of flights by foreign military aircraft that landed at Shannon between Jan 1st 2015 and June 30th 2016. Other statistical reports in relation to US military aircraft that flew through Irish airspace were also requested.
Independent TD Clare Daly, who made the FOI requests, said: “The refusal to provide a list of the US military planes that passed through Shannon or Irish airspace amounts to a cover-up of Irish support for a foreign military power and an attempt to deny our involvement in ongoing wars of aggression in the Middle East.
It’s impossible to see how making aircraft details public could affect our relations with the US, or any other state, if what they tell us about the planes not being engaged in military operations is true. It is in direct contravention of our obligations as a neutral state, and it makes us complicit in the displacement of millions of refugees from their homes,” the Dublin North Deputy added.
In his response to an appeal of the original decision to refuse an FOI request last August, the Deputy Director of the International Security Policy Section of the Department of Foreign Affairs claimed that the public interest in maintaining the “mutuality of trust with regard to communications between States” outweighed the public interest in disclosing information about the military flights.
John Lannon of ShannonWatch said: “Having access to details of the scale of foreign military use of Shannon is a matter of public interest. The covert nature of the US military use of the airport since 2002 demonstrates that Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Labour have no interest in protecting Irish neutrality.
In fact the opposite is the case; they have gone against the will of the Irish people by giving a militarised super-power unrestricted access to Shannon and Irish airspace,” he said.
A Red C poll earlier this year found that 57% of the Irish people oppose the United States use of Shannon Airport for military transit purposes. The figure excludes the ‘Don’t Knows’ which were at 4%.
The poll, commissioned by TDs Mick Wallace and Clare Daly last March, also found that 6 out of 10 Irish people want neutrality to be enshrined in the Constitution.
“The Department of Foreign Affairs’ refusal to reveal what military planes has landed follows years of denials about rendition planes that also landed at Shannon. We cannot believe government claims that the US Air Force planes we see coming and going are unarmed and not engaged in military operations, especially when the Department refuse to tell us why they are there,” John Lannon added.