Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for welcoming that. As he knows, I used to work in this area before I came into politics and it is full of acronyms and technical terms that can sometimes confuse people as to what the intent is behind what a country is trying to do with a treaty but this work is very important, as are the non-governmental organisations, NGOs, which work in this area. This country has a good history of supporting NGOs and other international state bodies and of doing research, doing work with civil society and bringing countries’ populations along when sometimes their governments have not stepped up to the plate yet in issues such as smaller arms and light weapons or cluster munitions or land mines.

There is work that we can do in that area and there is also a great opportunity to educate Irish people on our history here, particularly young people. As we move further and further away from events like Hiroshima, people and generations forget and the risk that these weapons might be used again increases.

See this speech in context