Arms trade nets Irish firms €30m
It brings the total weapons-related sales to over €300m since the Coalition came to power in 1997.
According to the most recent figures from the Government’s export control unit, 56 export consignments of weapons-related goods worth €29,133,585 have been authorised since January 2005.
That figure jumps significantly when dual-use exports - goods with a potential military use - are included. In 2005 the Government granted 352 licences to companies seeking to export dual-use equipment, amounting to over €1.8 billion in sales worldwide.
Military-related sales since the Coalition came to power account for close to €27bn despite years of Government denials that Ireland was involved in the arms trade.
However, with Ireland’s role in the arms trade now well established, the Government has acknowledged the need to tighten controls amid concerns that military goods may wind up in the hands of regimes committing human rights abuses.
The Government was put under pressure two years ago when a Forfas report - commissioned by then Enterprise Minister Mary Harney - identified gaps in the Irish regulatory regime it said could be used by rogue companies to deliver military equipment into the wrong hands.
Forfas also suggested arms brokers could be attracted to the Republic as, unlike Britain, Ireland had not yet moved to clamp down on those facilitating arms deals.
Promised legislation to address the issue was due to be published by the end of last year but has not yet been finalised.
Speaking before the end of the last Dáil term, Junior Enterprise Minister Noel Ahern said new legislation to update the 23-year-old Control of Exports Act was still being prepared.
“The new legislation will include, for the first time, provision for the regulation of arms-brokering activities in Ireland and by Irish citizens abroad,” he said.
Penalties for breaches of export controls are also to be increased, while departmental officers will be given the statutory power to inspect and audit companies that export military goods.
Amnesty International has welcomed the proposed legislation but criticised the delay in its publication.
“This is a major aspect of Ireland’s economy and yet there is no apparent urgency to introduce the legislation. We do have to question the level of commitment there,” said Amnesty arms trade expert Jim Loughran.
Amnesty and other human rights groups today launch a Control Arms Campaign aimed at securing an international treaty on the trade of arms and military goods. Amnesty says it has documented shipments of guns to war-torn Liberia and Sierra Leone by a company registered in Dublin as one example of how the lax regulations permit Ireland’s involvement in fuelling such conflicts.
