Senator seeks court order to reveal any secret RAF protection deal

14-09-2022 6:07pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119618459#Comment_119618459

Typos are proofreading. Fact-checking would establish that there are articles in the Constitution that require the consent of the Oireachtas for international agreements. There are. Interesting to see where the case ends.

xxxxxxl · 14-09-2022 6:11pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119618550#Comment_119618550

A non existent article is not proofreading. Takes 30 seconds to put it into the site I linked. And the Article states "before the Dail" nothing about the Oireachtas.

14-09-2022 6:30pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119618568#Comment_119618568

The OP links to a tweet that links to the article that mentions the argument put forward by the Senator. "This refers to a number of sections of the constitution including Article 29 with regard to the sovereignty of the Irish State and Article 29.5.1 which states that any international agreement must come before the Dáil for ratification."

In my copy of the constitution Article 29.5.1 reads "Every international agreement to which the state becomes a party shall be laid before Dail Eireann". Even on the link you supplied it looks like this:

5 1° Every international agreement to which the State becomes a party shall be laid before Dáil Éireann.

You might be confused by the subsection headings as 5.1 above is part of Article 29 hence 29.5.1

The Oireachtas is both Dail and Seanad but for precision I agree the Dail is stated in Article 29.5.1

Now, back to the point of my original post.

EDIT: Got rid of a typo.

14-09-2022 6:37pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119617627#Comment_119617627

Very firmly. Very.

14-09-2022 6:40pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119618475#Comment_119618475

Very debatable if the British are friendly but its not the point. A deal is unconstitutional without Dail approval.

xxxxxxl · 14-09-2022 6:43pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119618637#Comment_119618637

Ah thanks for the clarification. But this could be a legacy issue from WWI or II and just continued. On a side note Would this not open a can of worms on Shannon.

edit ofc WWII would be more lightly but you never know could have been blimps.

14-09-2022 6:46pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119618684#Comment_119618684

He mentions post 9/11 so its not a carryover. Although you are quite right to suspect same as they didn't cancel the Emergency until the 1980's or 90's I think. Shannon is a transit agreement with weapons stowed afaik but RAF is for fighting and interception and such. Allegedly.

bmc58 · 14-09-2022 7:16pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119618671#Comment_119618671

Probably done by "Untoutchable top Civil Servants" on both sides with the tacit understanding of Government.We will never find out the truth anyway.

14-09-2022 9:46pm

Crockwell has been outraged about this for the past 5½ years. The following is his contribution to the Order of Business Debate in the Seanad on 4th April 2017.

"The Constitution is the most sacred document in the country. It drives everything we do and should control everything that takes place in this House. I refer to Article 15.6 on the right to raise and maintain military forces, which right rests exclusively with the Oireachtas.

Imagine my shock at the weekend when I discovered that an agreement had been signed between this country and the United Kingdom granting permission to the United Kingdom to scramble fighter jets in Irish airspace. The agreement was signed by the Department of Defence, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Irish Aviation Authority, which is not even a body responsible to the Oireachtas but a semi-State body.

The agreement was signed before either this or the last Government came to power. I can find no evidence anywhere of Oireachtas oversight of the agreement or of a ministerial signature on it.

We talk about our sovereignty all the time, yet we are allowing jets of the Royal Air Force, RAF, to fly over the country. The director of Irish military aviation and the general officer commanding, GOC, of the Air Corps has no knowledge whatsoever of the agreement. It is my understanding that when he learned of it, he was taken into a room, shown the agreement and promptly sent home without a copy of it. The person with responsibility for military aviation in this country was not a party to the agreement. "

Muahahaha · 15-09-2022 12:34am

What Id like to know about the agreement is what are the protocols for certain situations and are they entirely decided by the RAF. Like if a hijacked plane were flying over Ireland do they shoot it down immediately causing potential civilian deaths on the ground or do they take on more risk of allowing it to get even closer to the UK before shooting it down over the Irish sea. Or if there were an incursion into Irish airspace and they go to intercept are they allowed to fly low to avoid enemy radar.

There must be loads of different scenarios to think of and you'd wonder do we have any input to decision making on them or is it all just outsourced to the RAF. Such an arrangement would be problematic as in an emergency Irelands interests may not necessarily fully align with the UKs. Were the RAFs actions to end up in the deaths of Irish civilians you could only imagine the political fallout that would ensue.

chicorytip · 15-09-2022 12:39am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058263301/senator-seeks-court-order-to-reveal-any-secret-raf-protection-deal

An example of why Seanad Eireann is a scandalous waste of taxpayers money and should be abolished.

Yurt2 · 15-09-2022 12:48am

He's not alone, but Craughwell is taking a rather literalist approach to the Constitution and may well get no joy.

Article 29.5.1 is commonly interpreted as pertaining to treaties that the state is signatory to and party to (and any Supreme Court case law referencing this article of the constitution such as Crotty deal with treaties) not mere procedural agreeements between states. This 'agreement' may have taken the form of an MOU or diplomatic communique, and is probably best viewed as an 'understanding' and not a treaty as the article is typically interpreted.

xxxxxxl · 15-09-2022 12:54am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119620155#Comment_119620155

It would be out at sea. There is nothing that's going to be flying fast enough not to be shot down over the sea. Now a fast moving missile would be different. But the odds of the destroyed missile killing enough people would be huge. The cheapest thing Ireland could do is invest in Radar not sure what the overlap is with NI. But on the west coast and down to the south. But at this stage Russia coming off the table Will China take up the roll of messing with NATO via Ireland. So for the Median term probably hijackings or unresponsive planes.

Ham_Sandwich · 15-09-2022 1:38pm

better to be saving money and have the brits stick there neck out for us is it not

08-10-2022 9:56pm

It seems the Senator has landed himself in it according to the Daily Fail. Why does the then Prince Charles and the £1m gift for charity spring to mind.

https://twitter.com/sharon_mcgowan_/status/1578774070773968896?s=46&t=Os7Wn_10hWNX12mTG0hizg

Yurt2 · 09-10-2022 2:37am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119719174#Comment_119719174

Irish politicians should know better than to take junkets like this, and some rules need to be set down. They never usually make the papers, but Oireachtas members are frequently whisked away on 'fact-finding' trips on the dime of foreign governments - some benign places, some not so benign.

A bit like the financial interests declarations, these trips need to be fully declared for the public to see. If they want to see quare places and stay in nice hotels, let them go to their own pockets rather than being potentially compromised and used as a photo-op by dodgy governments.

xxxxxxl · 09-10-2022 2:41am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119719750#Comment_119719750

It's really odd what would a low level Irish politician be doing in Qatar. Would the Revenue not look into any gifts that may have been given ? I'm sure they have all been declared not insinuating anything untoward.

Edit just to add

Maybe their over there to expose the slaves ?

Yurt2 · 09-10-2022 2:54am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119719753#Comment_119719753

I think what we're seeing with Craughwell is the cognative dissonance of being put up in 5 Star hotels by the Qatari government, realising he's been wheeled around like a chump for photos as if he was at the statue of Kim il Sung in Pyongyang, and then it registers with him he probably needs to fire off some tweets about migrant workers as if he's a UN High Comissioner for Human Rights so people won't rake him over the coals.

He should have never have taken the trip. If he wanted to expose the horrible conditions that the migrant workers exist under, he was not going to find any smoking guns on a Qatari government junket, so he should probably stop insulting his followers' intelligence on that front.

xxxxxxl · 09-10-2022 3:02am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119719761#Comment_119719761

Hahaha did not know he went down that rout lol. Who is being fooled. I'm sure their kept well clear of 5 star hotels. Maybe visits where something is being built.

fritzelly · 09-10-2022 3:56am

Has this, the RAF having a defence clause over Irish airspace, not been known about for years? Strange to think a nobody wants to bring it up as if something not known about before

Quantum Erasure · 09-10-2022 4:23am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119719794#Comment_119719794

quoting from earlier in the thread:

Leaving aside the Defence aspects there is a hugely important point to be seen: who decides on the direction of the country? Is it unelected officials or the Oireachtas? Has an illegal and unconstitutional agreement been reached by civil servants?

Illegal and unconstitutional agreement?

That seems to be the argument: that if such agreement has been made it needed Oireachtas approval and not having that it is unconstitutional and illegal.