Ireland’s role in arms trade increasing, say groups
Launching a joint global campaign yesterday against the proliferation of arms throughout the world, Amnesty International, Oxfam and the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) called on the Government to address significant gaps in the European and Irish control systems.
An Amnesty report earlier this year revealed that despite Government assurances, arms components could be traded in and through Ireland without any meaningful control. Amnesty arms expert Jim Loughran said recent review by the Department of Enterprise confirmed that since 1997 Ireland had exported 240m of military goods and 23bn of dual-use goods. Much of this went to countries with a track record of systematic abuse of human rights and yet the systems were not in place to enable us to say definitively that exports from Ireland are not contributing to conflicts around the world, he said
