Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)

I thank the Minister of State for the detail. My key concern in this area is that while the Department continues to emphasise dual use as, including perfectly legitimate ICT products, it also emphasises military applications and plans to extend this industry in Ireland. I welcome that applications are risk assessed but with this emphasis on military and defence applications of these goods there is a natural increase in risk and in the number of applications that need additional scrutiny to ensure the end use presented to authorities is appropriate and accurate.

Figures from the Minister of State's Department reveal that the value of these exports has trebled since 2021 and that the number of licences went up by 28%. How is the Department addressing the need to increase our regulatory capacity to ensure that Irish companies are not negligently or purposefully selling these dangerous goods, which can then be used to commit crimes such as those war crimes we are now seeing in Gaza and Ukraine?

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