SHANNONWATCH, the group which monitors military flights landing at Shannon Airport says it is “appalled” by reports that flights carrying munitions to Israel have been flying through Irish airspace since October 2023.
The group is calling for decisive action from the government “to end Irish complicity in the supply of weapons being used to murder Palestinians”.
The group says that details published by online news website The Ditch indicate that on at least six occasions Ireland’s oversight policies were breached by cargo airlines carrying detonators, missile safety, and arming devices, explosives that propel rounds of ammunition from firearms, and other munitions of war.
“This represents a major failure by the Irish government to uphold our neutrality and to ensure we are not aiding and abetting the genocide in Gaza,” said a Shannnonwatch spokesperson.
“The reports highlight the poor level of oversight of military and military contracted flights coming through Irish airports and airspace. For too many years the government has avoided inspections of planes on the ground. And it has clearly not asked enough questions about the ones flying through our airspace.
“The government must be able to guarantee that weapons parts are not covertly crossing Ireland on their way to a state that’s using them to kill thousands of innocent people. If the only way to do this is to deny transit to carriers that provided false information, then it should do that.”
The Department of Transport says no exemptions were granted in 2023 or 2024 to Challenge Airlines, the airline operating the flights identified by The Ditch.
Under the Air Navigation (Carriage of Munitions of War, Weapons and Dangerous Goods) Order, it is an indictable criminal offence for an air carrier to transport munitions over Irish sovereign airspace without an exemption from the Minister for Transport.
Shannonwatch are also concerned about military and military contracted planes landing in Ireland. For the purpose of ensuring compliance with the Carriage of Munitions Order, authorised officers are permitted to search these, but they do not do so, the group claims.
“Since the Irish authorities are not being told about munitions passing through Irish airspace, it is likely that they are also not being told about weapons on planes landing at Irish airports. We have been calling for inspections of US military aircraft at Shannon for many years without success. Countless requests to the Gardai at Shannon to do so have been rejected,” the spokesperson said.
Shannonwatch and the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign are holding a major national rally at Shannon at 2pm on Sunday September 8 to demand an end to the US military use of the airport.
