Dáil debates

Tuesday, 12 July 2022

Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space: Motion

 

8:30 pm

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

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. It is difficult to resist, when discussing a treaty on outer space, the gag about this Government living on a different planet, but I will resist it and try to take the issue seriously.

It is quite incredible it has taken 50 years to get to the point of actually transcribing this treaty into law. That is a pretty extraordinary fact. The objectives and intentions of the treaty seem laudable on the face of it. However, when I looked at what are called the depository nations where the treaty, I understand, will be deposited, I saw they are the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which is now obviously the Russian Federation, the United States of America and the UK. That says it all. We have a treaty that is supposed to prohibit anybody trying to claim sovereignty over outer space or to use space for the purposes of war and the depository nations for that are three of the biggest warmongers and imperialist powers in the world. The idea they can be trusted with ensuring there are not attempts to colonise space for selfish strategic interests or to use space for military purposes is frankly preposterous. There is zero chance of that having any meaningful effect.

I heard the Minister of State talking earlier about the wonderful impact of satellite technology and how it helps us navigate, identify problems with the climate, deforestation and impacts on water. It is incredible, not that the world takes much notice, most of the time, of the information we gather from this amazing technology. However, it is also that same technology that allows the US, Russia, Britain, China or some of the other big military powers in the world to guide precision missiles to hit people from hundreds and thousands of kilometres away and blow those human beings to pieces. That is happening all the time. That is what the US and the UK did in Iraq with utterly devastating consequences and it is what the Russian Federation is now doing to people in Ukraine. Indeed, those very same states are now ramping up their military expenditure, in a great irony of the discourse of such powers, by saying that to guard somehow against the horrors we are seeing in Ukraine, we must spend more on weapons and the military, as if that is not ultimately going to result in more disaster for humanity and the climate. It is difficult, therefore, to believe this treaty is going to make any difference in preventing the use of space for this. In reality it is being used for it already. I was quite shocked to read Elon Musk, who is very close to the American political establishment, is the owner of 40% of the satellites circulating around the Earth at the moment. That is one individual and he has a very close relationship with the American state.

The other interesting issue is the space debris floating around. In orbit of the Earth, or floating around there, are thousands of old satellites and bits of debris that have been thrown up into space.

The objectives of all this are laudable but it is difficult to credit the idea it actually is going to achieve those objectives when you look at the states and the big corporations that are utterly dominating the use of space, as they are the main users of military technology both terrestrially and in space.

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