The Taoiseach has again insisted he accepts the word of the US Government that it is not transporting prisoners through Shannon Airport in so-called 'extraordinary renditions'.
He was responding to Green Party leader Trevor Sargent, who claimed that Ireland was effectively an accomplice in such activities under international law which went back to the Nuremburg trials.
Deputy Sargent asked whether the Government was 'looking out' for planes suspected of being involved in renditions, and pointed out that the US authorities had given similar assurances to the Spanish Government, which later turned out to be untrue.
The Taoiseach said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had said in a press conference yesterday that such activities were not being pursued, so it was not just what she had said to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, it was on the public record.
Rice signs bases agreement
Yesterday, Dr Rice signed an agreement which will enable the US to set up four military bases in Romania. It is the first permanent agreement between the US and an eastern European country.
It signals a shift of focus towards potential areas of conflict in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia.
US troops will be using a base which is one of the sites where the CIA have been accused of interrogating terrorism suspects.
Washington and Bucharest have strongly denied the base was used for this purpose and the Romanian Foreign Minister, Mihai-Razvan Ungureanu, said he had no concerns about the new agreement.
Meanwhile, Dr Rice was in the Ukraine today where she met President Viktor Yushchenko.
She is due in Brussels later tonight, and will attend a formal NATO meeting tomorrow.
