Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

Despite the best intentions of the Minister, where the product ends up is outside his control unless he stipulates in advance that he will put in safeguards prohibiting co-operation with countries which have a proven pedigree in this regard. For example, Israel has supplied over 60% of the world's drones since 1985 and new types of technology such as the Sea Knight, an unmanned patrol ship which was used to fire upon Palestinian fishermen in and around Gaza earlier this year, were developed elsewhere but are being used for coercive activity. These could just as easily apply to some of the projects about which the Minister spoke.

Given that Saudi Arabia ranks fourth in the world in terms of military expenditure, spending more than $80 billion in 2014, and is branching out into the areas to which I referred, what assurances can the Minister give that Defence Forces personnel will not become involved in consortia making bids to access funding from Horizon 2020? The Minister implied that we would do so. He should provide an assurance that we will not do so as this is the minimum level of human rights compliance required.

See this speech in context