International Flight Ban on Weston Welcome

Press Release, 22nd February 2007

Catherine Murphy, TD (Ind) has  welcomed the announced ban by Minister for Transport, Mr Martin Cullen, on international flights into and out of Weston Aerodrome in Leixlip in light of what she has termed “an extremely lax approach by Government towards immigration, customs and flight movement monitoring at all small airfields in the country, including Weston.”

Speaking on the urgent need for more stringent security and compliance measures at all ports and airports Murphy said “last years interception in Belgium of €10 million worth of heroin bound for Weston was a clear indicator of just how open the government has left us.”

She continued in highlighting that “when I asked the Minister for Justice what immigration measures are in place at Weston he told me that no inspectors are in place at the airfield except where the operators of Weston inform his Department that they have foreign nationals coming in.  It’s ridiculous that this is the extent of immigration controls we have at airfields around the country.  Similarly, the Department of Finance conducted a review of customs arrangements at Weston last year concluding, in December 2006, that it was entirely acceptable for them to carry out as little as 10 inspections in a year as has been the case of late.  In light of Minister Cullen’s acknowledgement today that significant numbers of unauthorized international flight movements have taken place at Weston in recent years shows just how inadequate these ‘regulatory measures’ are.”

Murphy concluded by saying “there’s no sense in enacting law after law if no enforcement follows.  We’ve simply got to look at the level of resources we provide to the Gardaí and other State regulatory bodies, and the measures put in place to ensure that private operators are forced to comply with the countless laws on our statute books.  The fact that over 600 unauthorised flights into and out of Weston were allowed to occur at all is very worrying, but unfortunately unsurprising to me.”

More … read Conor Lally’s Irish Times article Mansfield airport has no permits for foreign flights 21st February 2007, TodayFM news item on the Weston announcement 21st February 2007

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Posted by catherinemurphy on February 22, 2007. Filed under Latest News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.