Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The committee recommended something slightly wider but I accept the principle of what Deputy Ó Cathasaigh is trying to do. It said “The Committee recommends that the investment funds be prohibited from investing in fossil fuels or the arms industry.” I think Deputy Ó Cathasaigh has spoken very clearly about fossil fuels. The simple fact is that if we keep investing huge sums of money in fossil fuels, there will not be much point in talking about long-term pension funds because all sorts of consequences will flow. But we are also living in a world where probably the greatest growth industry, and Europe is part-central to this, is armaments – not just cluster munitions and anti-personnel mines. Moreover, the biggest producers are the developed world; China, Russia, Europe and America. We, as members of the European Union, are part of a massive arms industry.

That industry is promoted actively by the European Union. We kowtow to the countries but in the past we tried to limit the spread of nuclear arms. Somebody has to call halt. I believe a clear statement is needed here that we would not invest anything in the arms industry. I ask the Minister between now and Report Stage to see how this could be done. Every day we see people across the world with developed world arms threatening each other. At the same time there is hunger and poverty around the world. There are plenty of good things to invest in, such as renewable energy. Unfortunately I would say if you went to the stock market, you would find the armaments industry is probably the most profitable of all at the moment. I ask the Minister to consider it very seriously. You might say that funds from Ireland would not make a difference but I think a statement would. Things tend to spread and we would expect that other people would follow suit.