Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am happy to join others in welcoming Mr. Matsui to the House and thank him for his work. One of my assistants who works with me in the Oireachtas had the opportunity to meet him previously when he engaged with Irish delegates at the second meeting of the state parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in New York. I am aware of the extraordinary leadership he has shown in the ever growing network of Mayors for Peace.

Senator Currie described very vividly some of the many testimonials and stories. It is an extraordinary act of generosity for someone who experiences something as awful as the impact of the nuclear bomb. Many of those hibakusha who have spoken have been generous in speaking and communicating about the unspeakable experience. It is an extraordinary act of generosity to humanity from those who experienced the worst of humanity and what humanity can do. Those testimonies have been spoken about so I will speak a little more about the context of peace, as I see it, coming after the horrors of the Second World War, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The UN Charter is striking and I go back often to the first line in the preamble about the duty we have to protect future generations from the "scourge of war" and - in language similar to the Japanese constitution - to work collectively, all of us, to promote the peaceful settlement of international disputes. That is not to say there will not be disputes. Ireland has also played a role in that. Frank Aiken was mentioned. He was one of the first signatories and one of the great advocates of the original nuclear non-proliferation treaty. It was notable at the time. Some of the discussions we hear now track back to the discussion at the time when there was an arms race that if one place was using it, everyone must use it and unless we are armed, we are not protected. It is the idea of mutual deterrents that creates a spiral of greater weapons sales and creates an industry that has an interest in promoting and expanding militarisation. It was Frank Aiken who said at the time, that although it may seem counterintuitive, to step further back is what gives us peace. It is not armament that gives us peace; disarmament is in fact what creates a culture and climate of peace.

Ireland is a neutral country. I am very clear when we talk about that. For me, neutrality is the idea that we only operate on principles and not on interests. We do not engage in military action for the pursuit of interests or on the basis of friends, foes or allies. We apply international law and are consistent in our application of it, including the call for the promotion of peace and disarmament. Ireland has engaged, as has the mayor personally and Japan, on the next waves of nuclear non-proliferation policy. Ireland also had a role, which is important, in the treaty to ban cluster munitions. This piece on disarmament is crucial now. We need to be clear that - Ireland's neutrality has allowed us to be advocates - to work for peace is work. It is extraordinary work. It is the most valuable work that can be done and it is not a simple matter. It is small countries such as Ireland, though Japan is perhaps not as small, that give the principle of the multilateral space that is not simply about power blocks and a return to the old politics of big powers and patronage, which forged so much of the sad military history we share, not just in the previous century, but over millennia.

As I come to the end, I want to highlight that work is needed now more than ever because we have a new escalation in arms funding. Even in Europe, we are seeing money rerouted from our EU budget into subsidies for the arms industry and ammunition manufacturers. There is a rise in autonomous weapons, which must be addressed. My crucial point is that it is also essential for the environment that we track emissions from military weapons because military emissions are still a blind spot within the Paris agreement.