The Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs has defended his decision to open the Salthill Air Show in Galway tomorrow.
The Galway Alliance Against War group has criticised the decision by Mr Ó Cuív to officiate at the event and has urged people not to attend. It describes the event as an "affront to Irish neutrality".
Two US Air Force F-15 Fighting Falcons, three German Tornado jets and aircraft from the US, Britain and Ireland are due to participate in the 11th annual air show, which has been billed as the biggest free public event of its kind in Europe.
With Galway Bay as its backdrop, the event is expected to attract up to 50,000 spectators on Salthill promenade and environs.
The Galway Alliance Against War said this week that there was "nothing glorious or spectacular about these warplanes" and described them as "weapons of mass destruction" which could "kill, maim and terrorise".
The death toll at a wedding party in Kandahar, Afghanistan, this week after a US bombing raid was evidence of their "deadly purpose", the alliance said in a statement. It was an even "greater scandal" that Mr Ó Cuív, who is a TD for Galway West, should agree to open the event.
"Only months ago he liked to present himself as a defender of Irish neutrality and sovereignty", but he was now "complicit in further eroding our neutrality", the alliance said, referring to Mr Ó Cuív's decision to vote against the Nice Treaty last year. Mr Ó Cuív recently said he would vote in favour of the treaty in this autumn's referendum.
Mr Ó Cuív told The Irish Times that his views on war were well known and he had not changed them, but he did not see a connection between an air show and the fundamental question of war and peace throughout the world.
It had been made clear in the lead-up to the next referendum on the Nice Treaty that any change in common defence policy would have to be put to the people, he said.
Mr Ó Cuív said he would have to confess to having been on board the LE Eithne, the Naval Service flagship, on several occasions and he recognised the fact that most countries did have defence forces. Irish peacekeepers had saved lives and dissuaded people from engaging in violence over many years in the Lebanon, he emphasised.
Traffic restrictions will be in place throughout the Salthill area from 1pm on Sunday.
