Ms Niamh N? Bhriain:

Overall, the profits arising are astronomical. We can look at the charts where we can see the company profits. The Deputy mentioned the genocide in Gaza. If we set a graph to show the profits of any of the arms companies, without mentioning them specifically, at 7 October, we can see what happened on 9 October and what has continued to happen since. The profits of some companies have soared by over 100% in that period and continue to rise. They still continue to argue we should be funding their research and development with our public moneys.

The Deputy earlier mentioned the legal underpinnings. There is a cluster munitions Act in Ireland which prohibits public money being spent on problematic cluster munitions and anti-personnel munitions. We do not know whether the companies that are in receipt of this funding are also involved in the production of cluster munitions. As well as there being a legal question in Europe, there is potentially also a legal question here in Ireland.