Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North, Fine Gael)

The Bill is one of the most important to come before the House for some time. It deals with two of the most notorious weapons used in the 20th century, namely, cluster munitions and landmines. Other weapons may have cost more lives in wars, but few have such a long-term impact. Landmines and cluster munitions kill people, usually children, for decades after a war has ended.

I welcome the Bill because of what it proposes, but that is not to say it does not have flaws. I concur with my colleague, Deputy Timmins, in regretting the omission by the Government of a provision to prohibit the investment by State bodies in any producer of cluster munitions or anti-personnel mines. I understand the Minister indicated an amendment will be made to this effect on Committee Stage. I hope that will be the case. It is important that this country would have no association of any form with any body, agency or country that is any way involved with producing elements of cluster munitions no matter how difficult that might be for some companies. Fine Gael believes that is a major and serious omission and we will propose an amendment to rectify it.

Cluster munitions are weapons deployed from the air by aircraft, including fighters, bombers and helicopters. In mid-air the weapon opens, scattering hundreds of smaller sub-munitions, known as bomblets, many the size of a coke can, to the ground. Other cluster munitions can be launched by being shot out of artillery, rockets, and missile systems on the ground. Whatever the means by which they are launched, the effect is the same — a large area the size of a football pitch is covered by mines, where they sit — often unexploded — for days, weeks, months, often years, long after a war has ended, until someone comes in contact with them. It may be the case that a little child finds a coloured object on the ground and picks it up to play with it, or it can come into contact with a farm implement, or it may be triggered by some object hitting off it. Whatever the trigger, the results are the same — a massive explosion that can seriously maim or kill. Often those who die are the lucky ones as those who are maimed can suffer horrifying injuries that scar them for life, leaving them without limbs and with horrific wounds. Any single fragment of a bomblet can rupture the spleen or cause the intestines to explode.

We have all seen on television various depictions of people who have been affected. It is something one would be better off not to see. It is not just the horror of the injuries that shock, but also the fact that those who are injured add to the injustice. Handicap International has said:

"The majority of victims are poor, uneducated males at work representing 76.8% of total confirmed casualties. Many of those are boys under the age of 18. In South Lebanon, nearly 90% of land used for farming and shepherding is contaminated with unexploded cluster submunitions." [It further observed] "98% of cluster sub-munitions casualties are civilians killed and injured while returning home in the aftermath of conflict or while going about their daily tasks to survive."

In Kosovo, 53% of casualties occurred in the two months after the end of the conflict. Most of the victims who were maimed or killed were boys aged between five and 15. Researchers for Human Rights Watch stated that in "dozens of towns and villages [in the Lebanon], Israel used cluster munitions containing sub-munitions with high failure rates. These left behind homes, gardens, fields, and public spaces — including a hospital — littered with hundreds of thousands and possibility a million unexploded submunitions" which could "endanger civilians for months or years to come".

Not alone is it important to ban cluster munitions but major operations should be put in place in areas such as the Lebanon to sweep them clean of cluster munitions as soon as possible. We are talking about weapons that kill the young and the innocent and do so long after the war is over, and leave those who survive with horrifying and sickening injuries in extreme pain, at worst, or without limbs, at best, for the rest of their lives. That is all because a handful of countries refuse to stop using those barbaric weapons. I hope the Dublin Convention, in which the Government played an important role, will mark the beginning of the end of the use of cluster munitions.

However, it is not the end. As other Members stated, the United States, Pakistan, Russia, India, China and Israel remain outside the remit of the convention and refuse to abide by it. We must not stop campaigning until all states are forced to abandon their use. I would go so far as to call their use a war crime and some would go so far as to say those who authorise their use should be regarded as war criminals.

I urge the Government to continue to lobby hard to push the issue and to use all fora available to continue the campaign. I hope the new US President will abandon the Bush Administration's refusal to sign up to the treaty banning these sick weapons. Mr. Barack Obama seems to have taken a very strong stance on them and would probably be much more open to banning them than a President of a Republican-led Government.

Anti-personnel mines are also covered by the Bill, which will give legislative force to the treaty signed in Oslo in 1997. There are three types of anti-personnel mines. The first type, the blast mine, is the most common. These are buried no more than a few centimetres deep and are generally triggered by someone stepping on the pressure plate and applying approximately 11 to 35.3 lbs of pressure. These mines are designed to destroy an object in close proximity, such as a person's foot or leg. A blast mine is designed to break the targeted object into fragments, which can cause secondary damage, such as infection and the need for amputation.

The second type, the bounding mine, is usually buried with only a small part of the igniter protruding from the ground. These mines are activated by pressure or a trip-wire. One may hear this type of mine referred to as a "Bouncing Betty". When activated, the igniter sets off a propelling charge, lifting the mine approximately 1 m into the air. The mine then ignites a main charge, causing injury to a person's head and chest, which is quite horrific.

The third type, the fragmentation mine, releases fragments in all directions, or can be arranged to send fragments in one direction. In the latter case, it is called a directional fragmentation mine. It can cause injury up to 200 m away and kill at closer distances. The fragments used in the mines are either metal or glass. Fragmentation mines can be bounding or ground based.

Ireland formally signed the mine ban treaty on 3 December 1997 and is scheduled to sign up to the cluster munitions treaty in December in Oslo. The Cluster Munitions and Anti-Personnel Mines Bill is intended to give the treaties legislative effect.

As we know, Fine Gael proposed its own Cluster Munitions Bill earlier this year. It was voted down on Second Stage, despite urgings from NGOs that it be accepted and amended on Committee Stage to make any changes that would arise on foot of the Dublin Convention.

While I am glad this Bill is before the House, there was no reason whatsoever the Fine Gael Bill could not have been accepted. It would have served as a strong statement of the unanimity of the House on this issue to those visiting Dublin for the convention. Ultimately politics prevailed and the Government, or Minister specifically, did not want to recognise the work Deputy Timmins did in putting together a very comprehensive Bill on cluster munitions.

While I welcome this important Bill, Fine Gael will be proposing amendments to strengthen it in some respects. However, I congratulate the Minister, Deputy Dermot Ahern, and the other Government Members on their work and for being leaders in this field. I congratulate them on doing such a good job at the convention held in Croke Park some months ago. It certainly created a very good and positive impression of this country.

In his speech, the Minister referred to the fact that provision was made in the Bill to enable the Defence Forces to participate in UN-mandated peacekeeping forces with the state or states that may not be party to the convention on cluster munitions in accordance with Article 21 thereof. This is the so-called "interoperability" provision of the convention, which was the most difficult issue to resolve in the negotiations at Croke Park. It is important that those involved in Irish missions emphasise at all times that they will not be party to the use of cluster munitions of any form in any operations in which they are involved in conjunction with countries that have not yet signed up to the agreement. All the EUFOR countries are signed up to the convention so this does not apply to them. The section of the Bill in this regard should be strengthened.

I welcome the Bill, which is very important. We are playing our role in the House and doing our job. I compliment Deputy Timmins who, as Opposition spokesperson, showed what can be achieved in the legislation he introduced. I am glad the Government has more or less accepted the essence of what he said. Together we can produce very good legislation that will be very effective internationally.

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