Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

To follow up on a couple of these pieces, the cluster-munitions Act explicitly states that Ireland bans direct or indirect investment of public moneys in companies which produce "munitions". To clarify, I thought it was just companies which produced "cluster munitions". It is not limited to munitions companies which produce cluster bombs. It is part of Ireland's very proud record in relation to disarmament that we have an explicit provision under sections 13 and 14 of the Cluster Munitions and Anti-Personnel Mines Act, which prohibit the direct or indirect investment of public moneys in companies that produce munitions. How is it compatible that we are effectively contributing an amount estimated to be about €12 million directly towards the production of munitions? To be very clear, the procurement measure has been talked about but what we are looking at here is the manufacture of weapons and the production capacity. I want to focus on the cluster munitions piece and then I might come back on the European legal basis, as I would like more detail on that. First, could we discuss the Irish legal basis?