Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is important to qualify my answer by saying that I am the Minister for Defence, and much of what Deputy Mac Lochlainn is asking about, and what Deputy Clare Daly asked about earlier, is to do with foreign policy issues: whether we want to make decisions that will target Israeli companies and Israel in order to make a foreign policy statement. In my view, given my experience as a foreign policy spokesperson in the European Parliament for a number of years, and a human rights spokesperson at that, such a decision would not be the wisest course of action. In my view, engagement is what brings about change. However, as I said, those are foreign policy issues.

As regards the Department of Defence, we comply with all of the existing procurement rules of competitive tendering for services and equipment and we comply fully with decisions that have been made collectively by the EU and the UN in terms of arms embargoes or other restrictions on companies or countries that may be subject to such restrictions at an EU level. Generally, European countries act together in making decisions on embargoes because it is a much more effective way to achieve results, and it would be unusual for a country to take strong unilateral action against another country.

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