US mid-term elections spark debate in Dail

Minister for Finance Brian Cowen clashed with Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins during sharp exchanges over the results of the US mid-term elections.

Mr Higgins, who accused the Government of facilitating the "Bush war machine", called for the withdrawal of landing facilities for the US military at Shannon, while Mr Cowen accused the Socialist TD of being anti-American.

During angry exchanges in the Dáil, Deputy Higgins said the "drubbing" president George Bush and the Republican Party received in the mid-term elections was a "rejection by swelling numbers of ordinary Americans of the unspeakable barbarities unleashed on the Iraqi people by the imperialist invasion of their country".

But Mr Cowen said he had "no respect for the deputy's anti-Americanism" and added that the Government would continue to support UN resolutions.

Deputy Higgins referred to a private members' debate he introduced in 2003, during which he pointed to the "catastrophe that would result" from the invasion of Iraq. Mr Cowen had responded for the Government at that debate and Mr Higgins claimed "the Minister made crucial facilities available to the US war machine at Shannon airport and continues to do so". He called on the Government to "implement the wish of the Irish people and withdraw forthwith its facilitation of and de facto support for the Bush war machine at Shannon airport".

But Minister Cowen said the only conclusion he could draw was that the US "only elected one socialist deputy".

Mr Cowen, who took leaders' questions for the Taoiseach who was in Brussels, said a Government motion on the issue was debated and "the decisions made and explained by Government at the time, which were consistent with our foreign policy traditions, were approved of in this House. It is not the work of a cabal but a democratic decision of this assembly."

Mr Higgins described Mr Cowen's remarks as a "contemptible response" when "the entire world is today talking about the profound meaning of the outcome of the mid-term elections in the United States".

Mr Cowen retorted however: "You are the only one exercising contempt." Deputy Higgins said "the Democratic Party is not a radical, revolutionary or socialist alternative to the Republican Party but that is not the point. The point is that the vote amounts to a massive rejection of the atrocities that the Bush regime has inflicted on the people of Iraq facilitated by the Government of which you are a Minister."

Mr Cowen said, however, that "I have no respect for the deputy's anti-Americanism. I never have and I never will." Mr Higgins claimed that was "another easy diversion. What do you mean by anti-Americanism? Do I hate the Rocky Mountains? Do I hate the Great Lakes?"

The Minister described Deputy Higgins' approach as "vituperative" and said it was "entirely predictable". He added that "the Irish Government continues to support UN resolutions on these matters, which were unanimously adopted".

He reiterated the Government's approach in the 2003 Dáil debate, saying he stood over its every word "because it was consistent with our foreign policy traditions, despite Deputy Higgins' assertions to the contrary . . . I do not agree with anything else the deputy has to say on the subject and never will. We will just have to disagree."