This article is from page 9 of the 2007-06-05 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 9 JPG
“The Green Party are not using a demand for an end to troop stops at Shannon as a pre-condition for enter- ing coalition. There was never going to be pre-conditions.”
Green Party policy states the party is “committed to ending the use of Shannon Airport by US military forces involved in the war in Iraq and insists that any aircraft suspected of involvement in illegal movements of prisoners must be searched”.
Party chairman and spokesperson on foreign affairs, John Gormley TD, was in the vanguard of opposition to troop landings at the airport, even before war was declared by President Bush in March 2003.
In January of that year, Deputy Gormley visited Shannon in solidar- ity with those who had established a peace camp on the perimeter of the airport, while as late as this Febru- ary he stated that “Shannon Airport is now, for all intents and purposes, a US military airport”.
However, Deputy Gormley’s ad- mission that he “couldn’t stand five more years of opposition” is one of the factors in the abandonment of the Shannon Airport policy.
The first break with party policy came in Clare when election candi- date, Councillor Brian Meaney said, “I personally believe that allowing the use of Shannon would be in the best interests of getting the Ameri- cans out of the mess they have cre- ated in Iraq”.
Now, as negotiations on the forma- tion of the Government reach their critical stage, the Green leadership have taken Cllr Meaney’s lead.