Bernard Allen (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)

Almost 60 countries now have nuclear reactors for research or power generation and 40 have the industrial and scientific infrastructure to build a nuclear weapon at short notice. The US has entered an agreement to pass on nuclear technology to India, which is not a signatory to the NPT, and Iran, Israel and Pakistan have nuclear weapons. Does the Minister agree that we are reaching a point of no return where the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons treaty is becoming defunct?

In view of the Minister's admission that the talks about a review of the treaty ended in failure at the United Nations in 2006, there is now urgent need to reconvene the talks on the treaty, not to wait until 2010, which may be too late. As a country that was an architect of the treaty, we should act as a global leader to get people around the table to deal with this deadly issue before it is too late.

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