State does not have military alliance with US, Minister says

The State had not entered into a military alliance with the US or with any other country or organisation, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Seán Sherlock has told the Dáil.

“Permitting the use of Shannon by the US does not challenge this position in any way and successive governments have considered that this is compatible with our policy of military neutrality.’’

Mr Sherlock said the use of Shannon Airport by the US was a practice in place for more than 50-years. He said that the State had never withdrawn or suspended the use of facilities at Shannon at any stage during that period.

Mr Sherlock was responding to a Private Member’s Bill, moved by Independent TD Mick Wallace, proposing a constitutional amendment requiring adherence to the provisions of the 1907 Hague Convention (V) respecting the rights and duties of neutral powers and persons in case of war on land.

The Government has rejected the bill.

‘No neutrality’

Mr Wallace said that the State did not have a policy of neutrality anymore. He said it had been facilitating the movement of munitions and armed troops engaging in invasion and occupation through Shannon Airport.

Mr Wallace said: “What is most infuriating is that, since Mr Justice [Nicholas] Kearns ruled the Government was in breach of international laws on neutrality, more than two million additional US troops, and vast quantities of arms and munitions, have passed through Shannon Airport.

"Governments since 2003 have consistently acted in breach of the High Court finding while illegitimately claiming military neutrality.''

Mr Wallace said the aim of his bill was “to put an end to this dishonesty and illegality’’ by strengthening the position of neutrality in the Constitution.

The Independent TD said the bill would allow the Irish people take back from the Government the power to allow the US the use of Shannon Airport as a military air base and the use of our airspace for military aeroplanes on the way to a warfront.

Mr Sherlock said the right to wage war was relinquished by practically all states under the 1928 General Treaty for the Renunciation of War.

William T Cosgrave, acting on behalf of the then Irish Free State, was among the original signatories to the treaty, which declared that the contracting parties condemned recourse to war and renounced it as an instrument of national policy.