Brendan Ryan (Labour)

The matter on the Order Paper relates to accident and emergency services but this is a matter capable of being remedied instantaneously by good management. I do not believe there is an overnight solution to accident and emergency because of the eight years of neglect it has suffered.

I was in Nairobi last week at a conference on peace in the Great Lakes region and I tried to be helpful, which is my usual constructive position. One of the terrifying facts which emerged was that there are approximately 100 million small arms in that region in the possession of people other than governments. That is scary. It is morally repugnant that almost all of those arms were made in Europe, mostly in countries which have subscribed to one protocol or another on responsible arms exports. This raises the question yet again of the European Union's apparent intent to end its embargo on the sale of arms to China. Once one opens up an area such as that to the export of arms, one does not know what will happen to them after they get there. I request a debate on the EU's embargo on arms sales to China. I would like to hear from the Taoiseach because I believe it was a Government decision endorsed by him but it is a decision which needs to be reviewed.