Written answers

Thursday, 13 February 2014

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

International Summits

Photo of Eoghan MurphyEoghan Murphy (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)
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75. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if Ireland will play an active part in the second international conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons, taking place in Mexico on 13 to 14 February 2014. [7206/14]

Photo of Eamon GilmoreEamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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The Deputy may be assured that Ireland strongly supports international efforts to focus on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons and that we will continue to play an active part in all related discussions, including at the Second International Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons in Mexico this week. Officials from my Department will actively participate in that Conference.

At the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Preparatory Committee meeting in Geneva in 2012, which marked the beginning of the 2015 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review cycle, Switzerland delivered a joint statement on behalf of sixteen countries, including Ireland, on the humanitarian dimension of nuclear disarmament. Since then, over successive NPT and UNGA First Committee meetings, support for the statement has grown from 16 to 35 to 80 and, at the 2013 First Committee meeting of the UN General Assembly, to 125 states - a majority of UN members. Ireland participated in the First International Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, hosted by the Norwegian Government in Oslo on 4 and 5 March 2013. We will remain closely associated with this humanitarian initiative, as one of the original sixteen initiators of the joint statement. I believe that discussion of the humanitarian consequences of a nuclear detonation offers a basis for reframing the nuclear disarmament debate in such a way that the catastrophic consequences so evident in Hiroshima and Nagasaki guide international efforts to eliminate nuclear arsenals entirely.

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