John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

At this morning's press conference to launch this Private Members' motion some of my colleagues wanted to give the Government the benefit of the doubt. They expressed the view that it might accept our motion because it was so reasonable. I disagreed as I believed it would table an amendment. It has done so and gutted our motion. It shows a sense of cynicism — the type displayed when the Taoiseach went before the United Nations and gave a solemn commitment to the world's poorest nations, on which he has since reneged. At the U2 concert at the weekend when his name was mentioned, he was deservedly booed by the crowd. Most Irish people recognise that it was a cynical ploy in order to become a member of the Security Council. It was a matter of prestige for this country. The Government achieved its aim of securing a seat on the Security Council but, unfortunately, did not do very much with it at the time and now we are left with this empty promise. Based on the Government's figures, we will achieve a figure of 0.43% of GNP by 2007. We will not achieve our goal of 0.7% which we will achieve at current rates by 2028.

The Minister should look at what is happening in our world. Some 8,000 die of AIDS-HIV related illnesses every single day. The first millennium development goal, to achieve gender parity by 2005, will not be reached. We need an extra €50 billion to reach the UN millennium development goals. It simply will not happen.

Next September the Taoiseach will once again go before the United Nations in New York. What will he do on this occasion? It is clear from the amendment tabled by the Government that it does not want to make any serious commitment. That is the difficulty. We have a problem with our credibility. We wanted the Government to produce a new timetable. However, such a timetable is absent from the motion. We had hoped that before we broke up for the summer recess, since we will not have an opportunity to debate the issue before the Taoiseach leaves for New York, we might get some indication. Perhaps the Minister will give us an indication this evening or tomorrow. On three separate occasions he gave this commitment. I was present on one of them, at Johannesburg, at the summit on sustainability. For one moment I felt proud that the Government was going to fulfil a promise but that did not happen.

There is one small mercy in the Government's amendment, it now recognises that we need an arms trade treaty. I hope it will, at least, fulfil this obligation. Today there was a separate press conference held in another room, at which the cost of the Iraq war, €180 billion, was spelled out. That is a tangible price tag at which we can look and say with certainty that if this money had been transferred to the poorest countries, poverty could indeed be history.

The arms trade treaty focuses on the supply of arms. Once adopted, it will help to ensure all nations are working to the same standard of arms transfers and ban the export of arms to places where human rights violations are likely. It will be legally binding and based on international law, especially human rights and humanitarian law. It will help to ensure deals rejected by one exporter are not licensed or authorised by another.

Finland is spearheading the campaign to build international support. It will be necessary for countries to show support for the treaty at the United Nations conference on small arms and light weapons to be held next year. As is evident from the amendment, while Ireland is sympathetic, it has not fully declared yet. I hope the Minister will make his intentions clear this evening.

The right to sustainable development is enshrined in international human rights instruments and declarations. In addition, exporter governments have made specific commitments under numerous regional and multilateral arms export control regimes to take into account sustainable development and the impact of arms exports on importer countries when undertaking arms licensing.

These are the most important issues. Comparisons between expenditure in developing countries on health, education and the military are astounding. Seven developing countries, Oman, Syria, Burma, Sudan, Pakistan, Eritrea and Burundi, spend more on the military than on health and education combined. A further 14 developing countries, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Iran, Cambodia, China, Ecuador, Nigeria, Rwanda, Angola, Guinea, Ethiopia and Sierra Leone, spend more on the military than on health or education. These figures place in perspective a problem which Ireland has a role to play in addressing.

Last year Amnesty International produced a report entitled, Claws of the Celtic Tiger, which showed that the high tech industry here played an increasingly significant role in the defence sector. In 2002 Ireland's military exports were valued at €34 million. Dual use exports, however, which include many components, were valued at €4.5 billion. Irish armoured vehicle technology appears to have been licensed via a Singapore company to Turkey where the military has used armoured vehicles to abuse human rights, including the killing of a man crushed against a wall by a tank during a Kurdish new year celebration in 2002. Also in 2002 the involvement of an Irish registered company with an international arms smuggling operation was revealed. The company, Balcombe Investments Limited, owned the aircraft operated by Renan Airways of Moldova to fly several shipments of illegal arms to Africa.

The Government commissioned a report on export licensing of military and dual use goods following criticisms from Amnesty International and others. On the basis of this report, published in May 2004, Amnesty International called for legislation to be introduced to govern military exports and control the activities of arms brokers and shippers with a view to improving transparency on documentation related to dual use items.

Will the Minister indicate to the House what he intends to do about the arms trade treaty? How does he intend to deal with it comprehensively?

With regard to the millennium development goals and the 0.7% target, if the Minister was to take part in the protest in Edinburgh next week, the responses to the chants, "What do we want?" and "When do we want it?" would be "0.7% of GDP" and "Eventually".

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