Vol. 427 No. 8
121 Mr. Callely asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs the number of foreign military aircraft which were granted permission to land in this country in 1992; if he will give details of the cargo, in particular any nuclear material, these aircraft carried; and the inspections which were carried out by his Department to satisfy their landing requirements.
Under the Air Navigation (Foreign Military Aircraft) Order 1952, foreign military aircraft require the permission of the Minister for Foreign Affairs to land in the State. Permission is granted subject to acceptance by the Governments concerned that certain conditions must be met, the most important of which are that the relevant aircraft are unarmed, carry no arms, ammunition or explosives and do not engage in intelligence gathering and that the flights in question do not form part of military exercises or operations.
Application for permission to land is made by the Embassy of the applicant country accredited to Ireland. The application procedure involves the provision of detailed technical information with regard to aircraft specification, crew, cargo and flight plan. Each application is examined and cleared by the technical Departments concerned before permission is granted.
Under these procedures there was a total of 303 landings by foreign military aircraft in the country in 1992. Many of these were stops for re-fuelling by military aircraft carrying political leaders and other VIPs. Some were in connection with aid to Somalia and others with air sea rescue.
