Richard Boyd Barrett Challenges Dual-Use Export Changes

00:00 Okay, so this is really the key amendment and it's from both myself and 00:11 Sinead Gibney and George Lawler all have the same amendment in here and it's 00:16 the one that leads us to believe the government have not been honest with 00:20 this house or with the public about what the real purpose of this bill is and I 00:25 just want to repeat that in the pre-legislative scrutiny there was no 00:30 mention of this at all. It was brought in, that was confirmed at the committee 00:35 stage, it was brought in after the fact and quite honestly it could have been 00:39 easily have been missed and it wasn't really advertised properly as to the 00:46 potential significance of it. But let's be clear it is stated in the 00:54 monetary memorandum of the bill and I quote the Science and Technology Act 01:00 1987 will be amended to clarify the agency's capacity to support dual use 01:05 security and defense projects first of all and then the removal of section 8 01:12 which previously required that enterprise and development agencies 01:17 secure formal government approval before they engage in or promote 01:21 any activity of a primary military relevance. That that would be deleted so 01:29 they can promote, support, give money to companies engaged in the military sector 01:36 primarily in the military sector and they don't have to tell the government 01:41 and this last-minute amendment comes in at the same time that the government are 01:50 exposed in an FOI coming from the currency magazine which shows that more 01:56 than 20 million euro worth of dual use technology exports went out of this 02:03 country to the Israeli military. It took quite a considerable period of time and 02:10 again credit to Niall Sargent from the currency magazine for chasing this up 02:17 and writing up the story and where he exposes that officials in the department 02:22 were warning about the possible end use of this dual use technology going to the 02:28 Israeli military who at that point just to remind people in the middle of 2024 02:34 at the time this stuff is exposed 35,000 people had been slaughtered right so 02:42 this is in the midst of a genocidal horror beyond imagination and at that 02:50 time a decision is made no despite the warnings from officials that this is 02:57 going to the Israeli military who are engaged in slaughtering men women and 03:02 children in Gaza we're going to approve it anyway and then more recently the 03:09 last couple of weeks the currency also has exposed that it wasn't only to the 03:13 Israeli military but I'll just quote a little bit more of it but it was to 03:18 companies that were provided weapons and arms and so on to Israel. I quoted 03:25 already the official warns the department that the end user has 03:31 direct ties to the Israeli defense industry and he quote there's a risk of 03:39 diverting these dual used goods to potential military end uses. In another 03:47 quote from he says multiple denials against the end user but the end user 03:52 was a defense company with deep ties to the Israeli state and military and I 03:58 think we can take it it was probably Elbit Systems but anyway it doesn't 04:02 matter it's clearly spelled out clearly spelled out in the midst of a genocide 04:08 official says this is going to a company with deep ties to the state carrying out 04:13 a genocide. Now how are we supposed to trust a government that made that 04:17 decision to approve those despite the warnings that were being made about the 04:22 end use of it. So we were in other words saying well look if we can profit from 04:30 us we'll go ahead we'll go ahead and it really tells a story quite honestly 04:36 about the government's shift in position because how long have we been out on the 04:40 streets demanding the government actually take action against Israel 04:43 impose actual sanctions instead of just rhetorical you know token tokenistic 04:51 statements towards support for the Palestinians but in actuality not 04:54 wanting to and see even now minister we're one of the biggest trading 04:59 partners with the Israeli regime billions billions every year one of the 05:03 biggest in Europe right we don't want to stop trading with this state committing 05:08 genocide and so that decision was made subsequently because the massive 05:12 pressure on the streets the public outrage somebody decided we better we 05:18 better just hold off on this a little bit but simultaneously we will make 05:25 sure that the IDA and Enterprise Ireland can support companies and not have to 05:31 let the government know about it so now the government won't know head in the 05:37 sand deliberate head in the sand hear no evil see no evil and the supply of the 05:47 war crimes are crimes against humanity and even genocide can just continue 05:51 because there's money to be made out of it I hate to say it but you know it's 05:56 very difficult to put any other spin on what we're looking at here and the 06:03 rationale behind it I mean the minister said described it as removing red tape 06:07 we need red tape when it comes to dual-use technology going to the state 06:11 of Israel when it's engaged in genocide in fact to the state of Israel at all 06:15 given decades of crimes or to other states who are engaged in you know wars 06:22 against the Middle East and Iran or Iraq wars in Afghanistan wars again you know 06:29 to take out leaders in Venezuela or whatever do we want to be sending 06:34 dual-use technology to people involved in warmongering war crimes with all the 06:40 horror that involves with the economic costs it's now even imposing on ordinary 06:43 people here I say no I say no and I think most people in this country say 06:47 no to that far better you know I often hear said about you know the health 06:53 service their computers being hacked by the Russians why don't we develop a 06:58 digital technology in the health service to protect against cyber hacking instead 07:02 of supporting the arms industry to send exports to companies committing war 07:07 just to thank the deputies for tabling these amendments and as with the 07:14 previous I can't accept them the section 8 5 provision is ambiguous and creates 07:21 ongoing practical difficulties for the agencies indeed it hinders agency 07:27 support by creating uncertainty about what engagement requires prior 07:32 government approval and what does not and this blanket provision is outdated 07:37 given the multi-layered regulatory framework which now exists increasingly 07:42 our defense forces have procurement needs related to the defense and 07:49 security technologies required to protect infrastructure in which our 07:54 economy and prosperity depends and not one deputy here in this debate 08:01 mentioned our own requirements around investment in our own defense forces 08:08 right raising the level of ambition to where we can continue to protect our 08:15 citizens where we can you know strengthen national security and 08:20 deliver a more capable and resilient defense forces the landscape is changing 08:25 I think we all accept that both in terms of operational need of the defense 08:30 forces but also the opportunities needed in terms of domestic and 08:36 European funding we have been very clear on the priorities which are in 08:41 relation to defense security and resilience opportunity and streamlining 08:46 these procedures facilitate that the agencies remain subject to ministerial 08:52 direction under the industrials development acts we will also have 08:58 robust mechanisms in place around you know rigorous project appraisals by the 09:05 agencies our export control regulation ministerial powers and government 09:10 oversight and defense procurement safeguards so it is really important 09:15 that the agencies remain subject to these requirements under the industrial 09:22 act governance and oversight remain robust in terms of as I said agency 09:28 project approval and this will ensure that every project is assessed carefully 09:35 transparently and consistently deletion of section 5 of the 1987 87 act as 09:43 proposed will streamline the work of the agencies in supporting innovative SMEs 09:49 and enterprises including cutting-edge technologies of strategic importance to 09:54 Ireland such as cyber security sensors data analytics and maritime surveillance 10:00 and it that has been raised many times in regards to our own vulnerabilities in 10:08 regards to national security regarding deputy Conway Welch's proposed amendment 10:14 I'm unable to accept it because it would reintroduce the center central 10:20 ambiguity the bill is designed to remove and we should not delete any ambiguous 10:27 statutory requirement to replace it with what recreates that and be ambiguity the 10:33 section 8 5 requirement is no longer reflecting the reality of how innovation 10:39 research industrial ecosystems now operate and instead of providing clarity 10:46 it has the opposite effect it has prolonged legal ambiguity and 10:50 encourages excessive caution in the system when considering engagement with 10:56 projects that involve emerging technologies with defense security and 11:00 resilience potential and these are areas of importance for our defense forces 11:05 equally the scope of deputy Conway Welch's amendment is open to 11:10 interpretation and potentially so broad that would make a requirement 11:14 challenging for agencies to interpret and burdensome for any 11:21 administrative purpose while the bill is designed to streamline operations and 11:26 given the nature of the modern economy and the range of activities across 11:30 civilian and dual-use activities there is the potential for the deputies 11:35 amendment to add an extra layer of bureaucracy to all engagements with a 11:41 host of companies beyond those presumably targeted by the amendment as 11:46 the enterprise agencies would have required to assess that in the scope of 11:50 statutory requirement and what is not as a result the work and the focus of the 12:00 report for the sector will continue to be governed by a combination of 12:06 existing policy frameworks legal duties governance standards and indeed over 12:13 oversight mechanisms including the regime supporting export controls 12:19 go raibh maith agat. 12:24 okay minister we intend to call a vote against this and make sure we leave 12:30 enough time to do it but just to say minister and deputy Gibney prompted this 12:35 thought when I was in occupied Palestine in 19 late 1987 beginning during the 12:42 first intifada some young Palestinians were the same age as me brought me to 12:48 their home in a refugee camp near Hebron by the way there was no Hamas then they 12:54 didn't appear till more than a decade later in fact there was no armed 12:57 resistance from Palestinians at all they were just young people being beaten 13:01 and shot down by a regime that treated them as second-class citizens 13:06 third-class citizens I mean dehumanize them in the most horrific way and they 13:10 brought me into their home through the barricades the Israeli military firing 13:15 tear gas canisters and they brought me into the house to show me a tear gas 13:20 canister and they said look look at that where it's made and said made in the USA 13:24 and in that moment my political I wasn't involved in politics my political 13:28 education began about the relationship between what was being done to the 13:32 Palestinians and the arms producers in the United States in the Western world 13:37 who provide them with the means to oppress people that have led to all the 13:40 horror that we're seeing today these days that horror is summed up by another 13:47 person I met a poet Rafi Al-Arir it was his anniversary recently who I spoke 13:52 with a Palestinian writer teacher in Shakespeare and literature who was 13:57 killed by the Israelis and do you know how they killed him they phoned him 14:01 beforehand and said we're gonna murder you I mean where he was he left where he 14:07 was because he didn't want his family and his friends to be killed and he 14:10 walked outside because now using digital technology that's what they do they 14:15 phone you up and say we're gonna kill you and then they kill you fire down 14:19 so we had to leave so the missile didn't hit everybody else that's what do we 14:25 want the technology that is implicated in doing that to people to say made in 14:29 Ireland made in Ireland I say we don't