Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

A review has not taken place. We have full confidence in the three countries involved. We are fully informed and briefed at all the meetings that feed into the GAERC meetings that I attend. We get full and frank disclosure of the discussions that take place. It is difficult as it is a stop start issue as regards the relationship with Iran. It is important we engage with them in a diplomatic way because the international community is looking to the EU3 and the EU as the brokers. It is one issue on which the international community needs to be vigilant in the months and years ahead because the potential for further destabilising of this area is plain to see in some of the injudicious remarks that have been made. It is vital that we negotiate in a diplomatic way rather than using bully-boy tactics with a country such as Iran, which is pivotal in this area. I had occasion to meet with the representative of Iran some months ago in the UN — I think the Deputy was in the vicinity — and when he asked me about the nuclear issue as a member of the EU I made clear to him Ireland's long-standing position in regard to nuclear disarmament and the entire nuclear defence and non-defence issue. He clearly said to me that as far as they were concerned they were only doing what they were entitled to do under the NPT which was to have a civilian nuclear industry. I said that so long as it was that type of facility, even though we did not agree with it as a policy in Ireland, if they were prepared to allow it to be independently inspected that would be sufficient for the EU. Unfortunately the inspections that have taken place under the aegis of the IAEA have not been transparent and some of the issues that have been unearthed lead the international community to be very concerned.

To return to the Deputy's central point, we have full confidence in those countries, particularly the EU3 in that they do have far more expertise in the area of nuclear armaments and defence capabilities from a nuclear point of view than Ireland.

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