Schoolgirls buy arms to expose lax trade laws

SEVEN Portlaoise schoolgirls have set themselves up as an international arms firm successfully brokering deals from South Korean and South African dealers in a bid to expose Ireland's lack of brokering controls.

The seven sixth-year students partook in the project for a forthcoming Channel 4 Dispatches programme with Mark Thomas. They were so convincing that they were asked to act as Irish agents for the South Korean arms firm.

Displaying imported leg shackles and film of a successfully traded 500,000-volt stun baton at a Dublin press conference yesterday, the students called on the Government to swiftly introduce legislation to curb arms brokering.