Dr. Eamonn Cahill:

I will do my best. The Deputy will appreciate, I hope, that I cannot get into too many specifics and we cannot talk about individual cases or licences. The first point to note is that our statistics show huge variability from year to year and, as the Deputy pointed out, there was a significant change from 2019 to 2020. A lot of that is a reflection of the relatively small scale of the Irish economy. Different patterns or exports by a small number of exporters will have a huge impact on the statistics. The 2019 figures represent a spike. They were definitely out of kilter with the figures for most years. The reason for that is very much related to the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Yemen that came to the fore in that timeframe. The Deputy may well be aware that there was a United Nations panel of experts report which made explicit references to state actors involved in war crimes and the overall humanitarian crisis there. On the back of that, a number of licences were denied, and that caused the spike in that year to which the Deputy alludes.

More generally, our denials are for a range of different considerations. Certainly, a key one is the risk of diversion, that is, the potential that something could be transferred to a military end user in the destination country. That concern is exacerbated if there is an active regional conflict under way. Human rights are another important consideration if there is active repression or if there are humanitarian crises in the general area. I think we make denials under most of the eight criteria set out in the common position over the course of a year, which very much comes down to the particular destination and the nature of the items in respect of which the export licences are being requested.