Labour Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Galway West TD, Michael D Higgins has called for a strong monitoring system to be implemented to oversee the end use of products which Ireland exports. He was speaking on the Control of Exports Bill 2007 in the Dáil.  

Deputy Higgins said, “The purpose of this Act should be to ensure a level of compliance that sees no advantage in export earnings which would take precedence over the arrival of an instrument of death in a person's hands. Ireland is not guilty when it comes to light weapons but partner countries in the European Union are. 

“The response, when it became known that there were up to 250,000 child soldiers globally was to lighten the weapons children would carry rather than eliminate the weapons or remove the children from this appalling industry of death. Scientists were hired to use new materials that could lighten weapons to allow children of seven, eight and nine years of age carry them.”

He criticised the concentration on profit from this “trade of death” and the “moral bankruptcy” which allows it to continue, even when a country makes parts to support the trade.

“The reason for which this moral bankruptcy is because the income from this trade of death is deemed more important than the moral leap needed to ensure that nothing a company or country makes or exports will contribute to the trade. This is not to speak abstractly. The earnings of the armaments industry are 15 times the combined level of aid on the planet. 

“There are many wonderful programmes that are supported by Members on all sides of Dáil Éireann, such as those relating to the World Millennium Development Goals, but these programmes are dwarfed by the earnings of the armaments industry. The industry thrives not only on sloppy and inefficient arrangements but on arrangements that exist solely to make money. Many European countries make a significant income from the blood of fellow inhabitants of our planet. It is beyond time that this change. We must demand that this obscene death industry be ended.”

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