Industrial Development (Amendment) and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2026: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage Dail Éireann — 2026-09-30 ============================================================ Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Dún Laoghaire I move amendment No. 7: In page 9, to delete lines 9 to 11. This is really the key amendment and is from myself and Deputies Gibney and Lawlor. We all submitted the same amendment and it relates to our belief that the Government has not been honest with this House or with the public about the real purpose of this Bill. I want to repeat that in the pre-legislative scrutiny process there was no mention of this at all. It was brought it in on Committee Stage, after the fact, and quite honestly, it could easily have been missed. The potential significance of it was not really advertised properly. Let us be clear, the Bill's explanatory memorandum states, "The Science and Technology Act 1987 will be amended to clarify the agencies’ capacity to support dual-use, security and defence projects". It also refers to the removal of section 8 of that Act, which required that enterprise and development agencies secure "formal Government approval before they engage in, or promote, any activity of a primarily military relevance". That section would be deleted so that the agencies can promote, support and give money to companies engaged primarily in the military sector and they do not have to tell the Government. This last-minute amendment comes in at the same time as the Government is exposed in a freedom of information request from The Currency magazine which shows that more than €20 million worth of dual-use technology exports went out of this country to the Israeli military. Getting this information took quite a considerable period of time and credit is due to Niall Sargent from The Currency magazine for chasing this up and writing up the story. He exposes that officials in the Department were warning about the possible end use of this dual-use technology going to the Israeli military. At that point, just to remind people, in the middle of 2024, when this stuff was exposed, 35,000 people had been slaughtered. This was in the midst of a genocidal horror beyond imagination. At that time a decision was made to approve it anyway, despite the warnings from officials that this technology was going to the Israeli military which was engaged in slaughtering men, women and children in Gaza. More recently, in the last couple of weeks, The Currency exposed that it was not only to the Israeli military but also to companies that provided weapons, arms and so on, to Israel. As I said already, an official warned the Department that the end user has "direct ties to the Israeli defence industry" and said that there was a risk of diverting these dual-use goods to potential military end uses. The article says that there were multiple denials from the end user but the end user was a "defence company with deep ties to the Israeli State and military". We can take it that it was probably Elbit Systems but that does not matter; it was clearly spelt out by an official that in the midst of a genocide, this was going to a company with deep ties to the state carrying out that genocide. How are we supposed to trust a Government that made the decision to approve, despite the warnings about the possible end use of the technology? In other words, we were saying that if we can profit from it, we will go ahead. It really tells a story, quite honestly, about the Government's shift in position. How long have we been out on the streets, demanding that the Government take action against Israel and impose actual sanctions instead of just making rhetorical, tokenistic statements about support for the Palestinians? In actuality, the Government did not want to, and even now it does not want to do so. We are one of the biggest trading partners with the Israeli regime, involving billions of euro every year. We are one of the biggest partners in Europe. We do not want to stop trading with a state that is committing genocide, so that decision was made. Subsequently, because of the massive pressure on the streets and the public outrage, somebody decided that we had better just hold off on this a little bit but, simultaneously, we will make sure that the IDA and Enterprise Ireland can support companies and not have to let the Government know about it. Now the Government will not know. It will put its head in the sand, deliberately. Hear no evil, see no evil and the supply of dual-use technology to end users who may be committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and even genocide can just continue because there is money to be made out of it. I hate to say it but it is very difficult to put any other spin on what we are looking at here and the rationale behind it. The Minister described it as removing red tape but we need red tape when it comes to dual-use technology going to the State of Israel when it is engaged in genocide. In fact, we need it for technology going to the State of Israel at all, given its decades of crimes. We also need it for other states that have engaged in wars in the Middle East, against Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, and in actions to take out leaders in Venezuela and so on. Do we want to be sending dual-use technology to people involved in war mongering and war crimes, with all of the horror that involves and the economic costs it is now even imposing on ordinary people here? I say "No" and I think most people in this country say "No" to that. We have heard much about the health service and its computers being hacked by the Russians. Why not develop digital technology in the health service to protect against cyberattacks instead of supporting the arms industry to send exports to companies committing war crimes? --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-30/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:00:59+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-30