Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

While the two particular aspects of the EDA we are talking about here are relatively innocuous, on the face of it, I have a problem with the agency itself for the reasons that have just been alluded to. I am against the arms industry. There is simply no justification for the disgusting arms industry. The EDA was previously known as the European Armaments, Research and Military Capabilities Agency, which was a more accurate title, before its name was softened and it became the EDA. It was set up explicitly to ramp up defence spending and the military-industrial complex and to produce more weapons for use and for sale. The EDA is about developing the European military-industrial complex. The consequences of that are disgusting, in my opinion. I do not use that word lightly.

EU countries have licensed arms exports valued at €39.9 billion. This includes €9.7 billion to the Middle East. The biggest recipient is Saudi Arabia. I really do not have to say any more. Saudi Arabia is a brutal dictatorship which is involved in an absolutely savage assault on the people of Yemen. It has produced a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, including the displacement of millions of people and the deaths of tens of thousands of people. It is an obnoxious regime at every level. The European military-industrial complex, which the EDA was set up specifically to support, is promoting this kind of stuff. That is what leads to the sorts of horrors we are seeing in the Middle East, including the displacement of millions of people in Syria. Ireland is being progressively dragged into this stuff because of our support for treaties that explicitly increase and ramp up our involvement in this area. There is simply no excuse for the sale of components of arms to countries like Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Israel and the purchase of military equipment from places like Israel. We will not support any further involvement in the European military-industrial complex.

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