EU:There were sharp divisions among Irish MEPs following the parliament's decision to approve a report criticising covert flights operated by the CIA. Labour MEP Proinsias De Rossa accused Fianna Fáil of trying to remove key facts and criticisms from the report in relation to Ireland.
"The Irish Government now needs to drop its belligerence against those of us who have done our democratic duty in holding them to account." He also said the Government had a sovereign right to inspect aircraft.
Fine Gael MEP Simon Coveney said some of the answers given by Mr Ahern to the committee, which drew up the report, were not satisfactory. He called on the Government to introduce a system of random inspections of privately chartered aircraft - a stance backed by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties.
Sinn Féin MEP Mary-Lou McDonald said the Government had adopted a "hear-no-evil, see-no-evil" approach to CIA flights which was "unconvincing and unacceptable".
However, Fianna Fáil MEP Eoin Ryan said the report was "shambolic" and politically motivated and the evidence relating to 147 suspect flights into Ireland would not stand up in a court of law for lack of evidence.
At home Green Party chairman and foreign affairs spokesman John Gormley said there was now an "imperative" to hold a Dáil inquiry. "The Government's reliance on diplomatic assurances from the US instead of active inspections is a farce."
Labour Party defence spokesman Joe Costello claimed the Government had "blatantly" turned a blind eye to extraordinary rendition. Ronan McGreevy