Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Ireland does not have an arms industry. The products Ireland sells are products such as soft drink concentrates, medical and pharmaceutical products, infant foods, general industrial machinery and equipment, dairy products, medical devices, stents, pacemakers, digital media and so on. Those are the markets Irish business is selling into in Saudi Arabia and they are important markets for these companies.

Clearly, there are problems in many of the countries we deal with and the regimes can be criticised. However, we must do that through channels that can influence the human rights performance of those countries, and that is what we do. The EU human rights group in Riyadh co-ordinates the European Union's approach and Ireland is actively involved in that. We have significant trade to Saudi Arabia and those companies have valuable markets. My job is to support companies in their export diversification and these are all products that are perfectly acceptable and tradeable.

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