Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister said we are doing €1.5 billion worth of trade with them. I do not want to be responsible for losing jobs in Ireland. However, the Swedes were selling Saudi Arabia €1 billion worth of armoury per year. When the Saudis started bombing Yemen, they cancelled that and they are no longer selling to them out of respect for what is happening to Yemeni citizens. We are not taking a position. Aside from that, if the Saudis find that countries like Ireland will trade away with them, whether in food, milk or dual parts, it means they have a licence to do as they please. Nobody is giving them as much as a smack on the back of the hand.

In November last year we gave permission for two overflights for planes travelling from Dover, Delaware to Saudi Arabia. We found out under a freedom of information request that those planes were carrying class 1 explosives, rockets, liquid fuel and rockets with bursting charges, possibly for the making of cluster bombs which are regarded as illegal. For all we know, because we do not search the planes, there are cluster bombs coming through Shannon. We do not know what is on the military planes coming through Shannon, because we are not allowed ask what is on them because there is supposed to be nothing on them.

How can Ireland continue with this position? How can we say we have a human rights position when we will not even search planes passing through Shannon to check whether they are taking cluster bombs to places like Saudi Arabia?

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