Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 15 October 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach
Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals
2:00 am
Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
I will come back to this in a moment because it raises significant issues for Ireland, which I am surprised have not been addressed previously.
On the other question of where these weapons come from, there is a requirement that 65% of the moneys drawn down be spent on European military production. Is it being tracked as to where the predominance of that money is spent? Are there measures to track that? I wonder if we will see a huge amount of money going into industries in one or two countries, which may come at the cost of other industries in other countries.
A total of 35% can be bought from third party countries. Does that include the United States? Is Israel one of the countries and is there a limit on the third party countries where this money can be spent? This relates specifically to an issue that has arisen before. Is it the case the money could be used to purchase "battle tested" weapons? Weapons are currently marketed as "battle tested" by Israel because they have been used in Gaza in the ongoing genocide. Is it a fact that 35% of the funds can be spent on weapons purchased from Israel or the United States?
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