Richard Boyd Barrett: Why Oversight on Defence Funding Must Not Be Cut

Your own department, when the Currency, through Freedom of Information, the Currency magazine, forced you to release documents about the dual-use exports going to the Israeli military, acknowledged, belatedly, from what I can see in 2025, maybe the officials can clarify or you can clarify, but I'm quoting for example from one of the releases, granting a license for the export of these items to this end-user could be viewed as undermining the advisory opinion, they're referring to the 2024 advisory opinion of the ICJ on Israel's presence in occupied Palestinian territory, given that these items may assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation in the Palestinian territories, and from what I can see that resulted in 2025 of licenses not being approved, that previously in 2024, 2023, while the genocide was ongoing, were approved, and presumably they were the same types of exports from the same companies which were approved in 2023, 2024, and indeed in previous years on lesser amounts, although it's significant that there's a surge, a massive surge, in 2023 and 2024 of these exports to the Israeli military, and in 2025 we now know that a decision not to approve similar licenses, although the department are maintaining, oh well we just take them on a case-by-case basis, but it's not really credible that we have 20 million, 12 million the year before, and then suddenly, no no we can't do this because we're afraid the end-user might be using them to do things which are against international law, that they're not the same kinds of things, and are being used by a military that is in the dock for genocide, and we're tied up with that case. So that looks like a change, that looks like a change to me, and it looks like a change prompted by the fact that suddenly you or your department becomes alarmed about the uses to which the Israeli military are putting exports from this country, dual-use exports, which have to be approved by your department and then a bill is brought forward that is going to mean that the government will not be notified when support is given to companies that might be operating in this area. Now that to me stinks to high heaven. Go raibh maith agat Deputy Barrett and go raibh maith agat Deputy Walsh. Is there any further contributions on the matter? Well I want to hear the Minister first. Okay. There's no limit on time in the committee stage, is there not? No. As I said there has been no change in policy. If you're not prepared to accept that answer I can't do anything about that. Secondly, in relation to this bill you're conflating two separate issues. I've been very clear in my assurances that there is no change in policy in the perspective of this bill. What we're trying to do is ensuring that our defence forces and the capacity that we're building up over the next number of years, that our Irish SMEs can tender for those capacities in areas that are cyber security, in areas of maritime surveillance and a huge amount of work that we need to carry out in the Commission that has been very public and very clear in terms of division that we have over the next number of years and particularly in relation to European funding that I don't want to lock our SMEs out of European funding. Export controls are absolutely another matter that are not for discussion here but have been very clear and helpful in saying that all export investigations are carried out under our department and essentially applications in relation to dual use products or services are diligently carried out. We have to be ensured working with the exporter to ascertain what the end user is for those products or services and if there is any ambiguity or the department is not satisfied then those licenses are refused. If there's no change, what is this bill about if there's no change of policy? I mean it's in all of the sections that I've submitted amendments it has the phrase without government approval. I think it's the wording or words to that effect and then when we get to section 8 the requirement for support for Enterprise Ireland or IDA support for certain areas related to defence don't have to go to the government anymore. That's a change is it not? I mean it's not the point of the legislation you're changing something. So what are you changing? And you said removing red tape. The red tape being in areas like certainly when it comes to the deletion of section 8 is the requirement that where the Enterprise Ireland and the IDA are engaging in an area to do with defence and security they had to notify you before and now they don't have to notify you. Is that not a change? I mean what's the point of the bill if it's not a change? And by the way if I could just make one other point to say this business about like the environment and environmental protection. I would just like to point out to you Minister that about more than 5% of global emissions come from the military sector. In fact some of the biggest polluters in the world are like the US military. So contributing to the military-industrial complex does a lot of environmental damage and wars do an incredible amount of environmental damage. In fact they make a mockery of attempts to address climate change if if countries like Israel and the United States and other countries, Russia for that matter, continue to bomb and kill people. The military apparatus required to do that does extraordinary damage to the environment and produces an enormous amount of climate emissions. Just to say that as a general point. Thank you Deputy Barrett. Minister to respond. Thank you and I hope you wouldn't misrepresent what I would say at the committee. First of all I said there was no policy or procedure change in relation to our export controls which there isn't. This bill has nothing got to do with our export controls. That is the line of questioning that you have focused on. So there's no change there. Absolutely stand over that. There is no change in policy in what this bill is about in relation to supporting SMEs to grant funding through European authorities like European Competitive Fund and to allow them to be supported by our government agencies in relation to those funding streams. So a change in procedure in relation to that, not policy, and a change in procedure and the purpose of this bill is to ensure that every single Irish company does not have to send a memorandum to capital to get clearance to get support through the European Competitive Fund in areas like radar, sonar, maritime surveillance, space technology, all those key areas that Ireland needs to be at the forefront of innovation of and our SMEs and jobs can benefit from. That's where the procedural changes, not a policy change, but in relation to export controls it's a totally different area you're referring to and there is nothing on this bill got to do with export controls. Okay well I beg to differ because if we're going to give to money to companies that export, unless you're telling me that the companies we could give these monies to, grants, consultancy grants or be engaged in ventures where we're acquiring land and so on, are not engaged in exports under any circumstances and that you can give assured none of these companies are exporting to, for example, end users who might use the things they are exporting for military purposes. Unless you're saying that, I doubt you're saying that. They can't under the current export control regime. The export control regime is not changing. It's illogical to suggest that Irish companies don't export. Of course they export, but the key thing is under our export control legislation there is no change. Every product or service that is exported that has a dual use label goes through the regime with the department. That's not changing. So I'm not sure where you're coming from. Well how is it then? How is it? You see the problem is the reason that in 2025 your department decided not to approve export licenses was because they identified the possibility, the likelihood or potential that the things that they had previously approved licenses to export might be contributing to the violation of Palestinian human rights, right? And it was your department that identified that risk, no doubt under pressure from decisions made by the ICJ, the ICC and public outrage over what Israel was doing. And now your department will have less oversight over decisions that the IDA and Enterprise Ireland make in relation to supporting companies producing those very things, or possibly producing those very things that have been used by, among others, the Israeli military to do things which our government considers to be genocidal, and so do lots of other people, and which the International Court of Justice believe are genocidal, or may be genocidal. So that's serious. And you're reducing what you call red tape, what I call oversight of your government and department over those things. And presumably there was a reason, Minister, why you had that oversight. Why did you have that oversight in this area where things were being produced in that area? Had it nothing to do with the fact that there was a concern in terms of our involvement with the military industries? That you had that oversight and then you decide to remove it at just the time when we discover we may actually have been providing technology to the Israeli military to commit crimes against humanity against the Palestinian people. I mean, would that not be a reason to tighten oversight over these things rather than relax it? Don't you think? Would it not be a reason to tighten the oversight rather than relax it? Thank you, Deputy. Well, the first thing to point out is that in connection with the changes that have evolved over the last number of decades, the world does not stand still. The threats that are faced to Ireland has changed dramatically in terms of hybrid threats, in terms of cyber threats, in terms of how different technologies are leveraged against the state. And that's why it's important that we have key SMEs in our country that can get capacity and can essentially take advantage of those modern technologies and support our country in defensive mechanisms and capacity building. And that's exactly what this bill is about. It was decades ago, it's a very different prism you're looking through in terms of the way technology has evolved and critically the way Europe has changed in terms of its European competitive funding and the portion of that funding that is going into defensive measures. I think Irish companies should not be locked out when you are clearly supporting our very strict criteria as a neutral country, which is always the case and which I'm a very firm believer in our neutrality, and critically that all companies that are involved with the IDA and Enterprise Ireland must comply with the Export Controls Act 2023. There is no changes in policy in relation to those companies who export or the controls and criteria that underwrite and give assurances to us as a government that there aren't unintended consequences or that any products or services do not end up in the wrong hands. And we're very clear about that. There has been no policy change in relation to that. What I'm trying to do is to ensure that our SMEs can and can benefit quite significantly from investments in key technologies that have a defensive aspect, like from radar, from sonar, from essentially our maritime surveillance, from space technologies, cyber security, all those areas which are very very important in the future. Well Minister, I have to say I find it remarkable that you use the change in technology as the justification for what you're doing here because if anything the changes in military technology would, I would say, would support far more my concerns because what we're seeing in terms of military technology is the greater use, for example, of drones to murder people. So instead of sending the main element of military aggression these days being boots on the ground, increasingly regimes like the Israelis, like the Americans or the Russians are using drones to kill people and to commit terrible terrible crimes against people. They were used to devastating effect in the genocide in Gaza, drones, to assassinate people left right and centre. Drone technology is what's being used and we can see that's what's happening with military technology generally. The drone technology is becoming a bigger bigger component of absolutely horrific, brutal, terrible military activity that's proliferating around the world. So our involvement in those industries requires quite a bit of oversight, I would have thought, and yet you want to reduce the oversight. You want to, to quote, reduce the red tape. Now I suggest there needs to be quite a bit of red tape around technology that could contribute to the sort of crimes that we have seen Israel commit or that for that matter Russia is committing with the use of drone technology. And from what I can see there's nothing to stop the monies that might be deployed or made available by the IDA or the Enterprise Ireland going to companies that then export to people who will use these technologies in ways that are involve violation of human rights or the commission of war crimes or crimes against humanity. There's nothing, you're reducing the government's oversight in that area rather than increasing it when that type of technology is proving to be a bigger element in war and the commission of those sorts of crimes than it was in the past.