Ireland must join Spain and Switzerland and close its airspace to US military aircraft en route to fulfil military objectives in the Middle East, according to Social Democrats foreign affairs spokesperson Patricia Stephenson.<\/p>\n
Senator Stephenson said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were almost 250 more US military flights over Ireland since last summer than reported by the Department of Foreign Affairs, which officials put down to administrative errors.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow can we be confident that the Government knows that there is nothing of concern in the military planes that pass overhead when they can\u2019t even accurately count them?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are consistently told by the Government that there are no issues with the US warplanes that fly through Irish airspace or through Shannon Airport. These assurances appear to be based on nothing more than blind trust in a country which launched an illegal war in Iran and detonated the world economy.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpain and Switzerland closed their airspace to US aircrafts involved in the conflict in the Middle East. It\u2019s shameful that Ireland will not commit to the same, considering there was a 56% increase in US warplanes over Ireland during the month in which it launched hundreds of airstrikes on Iran.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that US military transport aircraft, troop carriers and surveillance aircraft have all flown over Ireland to wage an illegal war in the Middle East. It is time we do something about our complicity in that crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
April 20th, 2026<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ireland must join Spain and Switzerland and close its airspace to US military aircraft en route to fulfil military objectives in the Middle East, according to Social Democrats foreign affairs spokesperson Patricia Stephenson. Senator Stephenson said: \u201cThere were almost 250 more US military flights over Ireland since last summer than reported by the Department of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14727,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[408,797,814,738,641,816],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-foreign-affairs","category-iran","category-lebanon","category-palestine","category-patricia-stephenson","category-us"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n