Paudge Connolly (Cavan-Monaghan, Independent)

I welcome the Bill, which has been a considerable period in gestation, and its transposition into law. It is timely in view of the events of the past couple of weeks.

Multilateral treaties cannot in themselves ensure security but they offer a framework to meet today's extremely serious challenges. These range from the risks of accidental nuclear war and terrorist use of a nuclear device to global warming and the massacre of citizens. Multilateral treaties and the regimes they establish contribute to national and global security by articulating norms, creating monitoring and enforcement mechanisms and providing benchmarks for progress.

Opponents of international treaties caution against binding agreements which other states may not obey, but legal systems must not be abandoned because some parties do not comply. Instead, violations must be addressed with enforcement mechanisms, including verification procedures that work to detect and deter violations and a range of sanctions.

The principal question raised by recent events has been what the United Nations can do to ensure compliance by North Korea. On the part of the United States, the events of 11 September 2001 spawned a revised foreign policy from that of the previous Clinton Administration. President Bush singled out states suspected of backing terrorists and developing and proliferating weapons of mass destruction. He referred to North Korea, Iran and Iraq as states which, with their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, aiming to threaten the peace of the world. Following 9/11, North Korea was reportedly included, with Russia, China, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya, as a target for the use of nuclear weapons.

Despite being a party to nuclear non-proliferation treaties, North Korea admitted it had been acquiring the capacity to build a plant for producing highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. It was unclear whether North Korea had actually built such a plant and, if so, whether it produced any highly enriched uranium as the IAEA monitors were ordered to dismantle their inspection equipment and leave the country. Having unsealed its irradiated fuel storage and ejected the IAEA inspectors, North Korea put itself in a position to resume a nuclear weapons program without international safeguards.

At that time North Korea stressed it had no intention to produce nuclear weapons and that its nuclear activities would be confined only to peaceful purposes such as the production of electricity. The House should note the production of electricity is often used as a cover when parties have ulterior motives. North Korea's actions violated the provision of the agreed framework under which it agreed to work consistently for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. However, it may have been lost sight of that all nuclear weapon states made a commitment to eventual disarmament and agreed to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament under strict and effective international control. The states committed to a statement of principles and objectives that included systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate goal of eliminating those weapons. In 1996 the International Court of Justice ruled that the use of nuclear weapons was generally illegal and that all nuclear weapons states were required to pursue and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.

The true motives behind North Korea's recent activities are a matter of conjecture and the rest of the world must decide upon a policy in that context. However, one must also take into account the open intent of the United States to continue to wield nuclear weapons and threaten their use. The US insistence that others must fully adhere to their treaty commitments is therefore not very persuasive and undermines the credibility of US demands for compliance. Only in symmetry of compliance is there any hope for maintaining the strength of the non-proliferation treaty, which is considered crucial in preventing more states from choosing the nuclear option and further jeopardising global security. In this regard, the United States should commit to irreversible reductions of nuclear weapon stockpiles and affirm its commitment to a test ban.

The profile of some of the individuals who have their fingers on the buttons is frightening. North Korea, for example, is headed by a somewhat eccentric man, Kim Jong-Il, a diminutive playboy at odds with his brutal regime, and a vain, paranoid hypochondriac who wears platform shoes to enhance his height of 5' 3". It is unclear whether he is a master manipulator or an irrational madman — I suggest the latter. He is said to have a library of 20,000 Hollywood films and to have engineered the kidnapping in 1978 of a South Korean film director and his girlfriend. His views of the world are probably shaped by many of the films he watches. He has been linked by defectors to the 1986 bombing of a Korean Airlines jet in which 115 people were killed. He is also seen as a clever manipulator, willing to take great risks to underpin his regime, such as his recent decision to test a nuclear device. Regrettably, Kim Jong-Il is not alone in the world, as is demonstrated by the actions of the Iranian President Ahmadinejad and others who have fingers poised over nuclear buttons.

The nuclear processing plant at Sellafield, on our doorstep, would be an obvious target for terrorists. The consequences this plant could have for most of Ireland if a nuclear accident were to occur or if it were to be attacked by terrorists have been highlighted. An explosion and fire would be just the beginning as the cooling system and tanks would heat up and spew out more radioactivity within hours. As much as half of the caesium-137 in the tanks could escape into the air, and would amount to 44 times more caesium-137 than was released by the Chernobyl disaster. We are all familiar with the consequences of that disaster and its legacy for many children. The resulting 4 million terabecquerels of radioactivity would contaminate most of Britain and, depending on which way the wind was blowing, Ireland, continental Europe and beyond. Large parts of Britain and Ireland would become uninhabitable and, as they are more densely populated than the Ukraine, widespread chaos would ensue. In the following 50 years it is estimated 2 million cancers would be caused, assuming the pattern of public exposure was similar to that at Chernobyl.

I pay tribute to voluntary groups in Monaghan who take groups of children from Chernobyl to Ireland for holidays, which is a nice gesture and one that should be noted.

A comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty would provide a unique opportunity to contain the growing threat of nuclear proliferation. Since 1996 over 158 nations, including the US, have signed the nuclear test ban treaty, yet the world has witnessed nuclear and missile tests in India, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea. Global enactment of the nuclear test ban treaty banning all nuclear test explosions can provide a last line of defence against new advances in weapons development. Nations can build unsophisticated nuclear weapons without testing but they would be much less likely to do so knowing they could not test. Without a ban on testing, other weapons states will at some point begin testing again.

At the end of the Cold War, the ability of two aging superpowers to control their neighbours' nuclear destinies had weakened. Given that there are 27,000 nuclear warheads in the world, one wonders how stable are the minds of those with their fingers on the nuclear buttons. If we knew the full facts we might not sleep at night, but that is how the world has become.

The case for a nuclear test ban is overwhelming. It would make the single most important contribution to world peace. I support the Bill.

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