Will the Government draw meaningful conclusions from the drubbing received by American President George Bush and his party in the mid-term elections, which was, above all, a rejection by swelling numbers of ordinary Americans of the unspeakable barbarities unleashed on the Iraqi people by the imperialist invasion of their country? Hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, men, women and children, have been slaughtered and maimed and millions have been terrified as a result of the actions of the forces that went there allegedly to liberate them. Let us not forget the thousands of American soldiers, working class youths in uniform, who have also been slaughtered.

In January 2003, two months before the invasion, the Independent Deputies and this Socialist Party Deputy moved a Private Members' motion pointing to the catastrophe that would result from the then imminent invasion of Iraq. The then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Cowen, answered our motion on behalf of the Government. The Taoiseach and the Government gave credence at all times to the monstrous lies of Bush and Blair that their invasion was about removing weapons of mass destruction and peace when we said it was to remove oil resources and secure imperialist domination of the Middle East.

The Minister made crucial facilities available to the US war machine at Shannon Airport and continues to do so. On an annual basis, 250,000 American soldiers are facilitated at Shannon in pursuance of the occupation of Iraq. He dismissed with contempt 100,000 people who marched in Dublin on 15 February 2003 and defied with contempt the views of the majority of the Irish people who opposed the invasion and the use of Shannon Airport by the US military.

The Deputy's time is concluded.

He allowed the commander-in-chief, President Bush, to parade in Shannon with his troops. Now that the American people have rejected the bloody carnage that Mr. Bush and his neo-conservative cabal have inflicted on the people of Iraq, will the Irish Government implement the wish of the Irish people and withdraw forthwith its facilitation of, and de facto support for, the Bush war machine at Shannon Airport?

The only conclusion I can draw at the moment is that they only elected one socialist Deputy. A Government motion was debated in this Chamber and passed, defeating Deputy Joe Higgins's motion. The decisions made and explained by Government at the time, which were consistent with our foreign policy traditions, were approved of in this House. It is not the work of a cabal but a democratic decision of this assembly.

Not in our name.

Answer the question. The Minister's reply was a fudge.

I am speechless.

That does not happen very often.

That is a contemptible response——

Deputy Joe Higgins is the only one exercising contempt.

——from an Irish Government when the entire world is today talking about the profound meaning of the outcome of the mid-term elections in the United States. The Democratic Party is not a radical, revolutionary or socialist alternative to the Republican Party but that is not the point. The point is that the vote amounts to a massive rejection of the atrocities that the Bush regime has inflicted on the people of Iraq——

Hear, hear.

——facilitated by the Government of which Mr. Cowen is a Minister. If he was convinced that the support he continues to give to American troops was right he would speak for more than ten seconds to explain to the Irish people why he defies their wishes.

The Deputy's time is concluded.