Good afternoon. Before we proceed, I have a quick note for members. I advise members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings, and I will not permit a member to participate when they are not adhering to this constitutional requirement. Therefore, a member who attempts to participate from outside the parliamentary precincts will be asked to leave the meeting and in this regard, I ask any member partaking via Microsoft Teams to confirm they are on the Leinster House campus before they contribute to the meeting. Should a division occur, any member participating remotely will be required to make their way to the meeting room within the normal division time to vote, before returning to their original location.

We have apologies from Deputy McCormack. This meeting has been convened to resume consideration of Committee Stage of the Industrial Development (Amendment) and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2026, which was referred to the committee by an order of the Dáil on 14 May 2026. I formally welcome the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, Deputy Peter Burke, and his officials to the meeting today.

Deputy Boyd Barrett was in possession on the previous occasion.

We have gone through much of the argument, but a briefing note has come in since our last discussion. I am opposing this section, and I have said removing the requirement of the IDA or Enterprise Ireland to get approval from the Government to support people involved in the defence and security sector looks, to my mind, very much like promotion of the arms industry and an encouragement of Irish industry and business to get involved in the arms industry. I do not think we should be doing that. As a neutral country, we should not be promoting, encouraging or making it easier in any way for Irish industry or business to get involved with the arms industry.

I am not sure if I made this point the last time, but ReArm Europe, which is going to be a centrepiece of the EU Presidency and EU policy, is about massively expanding the arms sector. It is more or less doubling European expenditure on the military armament and defence sector from a current level of about €400 billion, which is a lot of money. To put it in perspective, Russia, which has been presented as and shown itself to be a dangerous threat and military aggressor with brutal, terrible consequences for the people of Ukraine, has a military expenditure of about €190 billion. Europe's combined expenditure on weapons and armament is already double that, and now we are going to go to more than €800 billion. It is also worth saying that various countries in the European Union have had licences to export armaments to the State of Israel in recent years to the tune of about €800 million. That is an awful lot of armaments and weaponry to go to Israel while it commits a genocide.

I do not want to see Ireland involved in that, and as far as I am concerned, there is a straightforward opportunity cost here. There are things that are more important, and I suspect more desired and wanted by the people of this country, which would see Europe and this country prioritise investment, enterprise and industrial development in areas more socially beneficial. The slogan on the protest we had today outside the EU Presidency launch was, "No to tanks and drones; we want schools and homes." It is a very simple idea, but a good one. It would be far better to invest in things that are beneficial to human beings and make their lives better, rather than involving ourselves in developing weaponry and armaments that are designed to murder people and are doing exactly that in Palestine.

I do not want to see Europe or Ireland go in this direction. As I said, it deeply worries me that during the height of the genocide against the Palestinian people, we had considerable numbers of dual-use goods going from this country. I know the Government will say it is just red tape, but the truth is that even in the note the Minister gave us, which I have in front of me here, he is effectively saying it is unnecessary because we want small and medium enterprises - I think the Minister said this himself the last time - to benefit from the expansion of this sector. I do not, and I do not think as a neutral country we should promote or encourage that. We should put as much red tape and obstacles as possible in the way of it. Generally, I do not think Enterprise Ireland or the IDA should be doing this.

The Minister might say if he has any idea of the current volume of Enterprise Ireland or IDA involvement and support for that defence, security and armament sector. It is an important debate, and while the Minister might not agree with me, the public have a right to know and understand to what extent our State agencies and this country are involved in encouraging and promoting this sector. We should have an open, public debate about whether we want to be involved in that sector.

That is most of what I want to say. I will be interested to hear any response the Minister might have.

I assume the Deputy wants to push the question to a vote.

I think so. The Minister may want to respond. Maybe he does not, which is fine and I will just press it.

I am happy to respond. The Deputy's opening premise is that this is promoting the arms industry. This is anything but promoting the arms industry. Ordinary Irish people would be concerned about the protection of subsea cables coming to our territory that are central for connectivity in Europe. Many of the large employers that we have in our State are worried about cybersecurity. The Health Service Executive had a very significant attack. I think people would be worried about the capacity of the Defence Forces. We had the Commission on the Defence Forces which has published its report. I am at pains to point out that the core genesis of this amendment is to facilitate our maritime surveillance technology. It is to facilitate our cybersecurity capacity and capability. It is to facilitate areas in relation to communications and satellite technology. We have some very exciting Irish indigenous enterprises operating in this space.

When talking about defensive technology, communications, and trying to ensure that we can control our seas, know what is there and pinpoint exactly where the threats are, it is only reasonable that Irish businesses should be able to tender for those contracts with the Defence Forces and get the benefit of that in the Irish economy. What the Deputy is talking about in the context of the EU is a separate argument. We are discussing here a national policy, a national competence. When talking about the EU, we are talking about a budget among the 27 member states, including countries on the eastern flank of Europe which are under severe threats from Russia right now. Their objectives will be quite different from ours. Ours is in defensive measures, building our capacity and protection of our infrastructure. Particularly with our offshore renewables and the work that we will be doing in the capital plan over the next decade, it is critical that we have capacity and intelligence so that our services can have the support to be able to plan and manage those threats effectively.

I will respond briefly and I will not hold people up too long. Other Deputies may want to speak. We went over this ground. Every time this issue is mentioned, the cyberattack on the HSE is mentioned. I have to say-----

I think that was the first time I mentioned it.

That may well be true.

It is a fact; it did happen.

I do not deny it for one minute but it is the example that is cited again and again. I recently spoke to a Palestinian doctor. He was actually born here of Palestinian origin and was part of our protest today. He pointed out that the computer system in the health service, which the Minister is 100% right in saying is absolutely decrepit, the same one that was hacked, is still there. I am all for investing in improving the situation in the health service to prevent it from being hacked, but I do not think that is what we are talking about here. I am all up for talking about enhancing the digital infrastructure of the health service. I just did a little bit of research and found an article published in the Business Post on 28 April, which was before I had even stumbled on this issue. It explicitly put the removal of section 8 that is being proposed here in the context of ReArm Europe. It stated:

There are concerns within government that if Ireland does not remove the barriers to Irish companies' full participation in the EU’s plans [ReArm Europe], then it would simply lose the opportunity to recoup money it is contributing to the EU budget anyway.

In other words, we want to get involved in the ReArm Europe defence plan and that is what this is about. I do not. I want to make that clear. That does not mean I do not want to invest in providing cybersecurity in the health service but I do not want to get involved in, for example, drone technology which is going to be used by Israel to target and murder people in Gaza. That is what is going on in Europe at the moment. Sadly, we have been involved to some degree with the dual-use exports to the IDF during 2023 and 2024. It was €12 million in 2023 and €20 million in 2024 with smaller amounts before that. However, there was a big expansion during the height of the genocidal assault. This is what Europe is doing at the moment with huge amounts of weapons being deployed in the most horrendous circumstances. I will just read another line from the same article:

The requirement for government approval has had a “chilling effect” on companies being willing to work with the state bodies...

It is referring to this area. I am sorry to say that is good. I want it to have a chilling effect. It is good to have a chilling effect about people deciding to move into this sector. I would far rather if they invested in actually improving technology in the health service or in other areas that would be beneficial to Irish society, to society generally and to humanity rather than in the in the arms industry. For that reason, I have to disagree. I think the Government is being quite upfront with people about what is going on here.

I really have to push back very heavily. The article the Deputy referred to is dealing with the proposed European competitive fund which will be about €409 billion. As a big component of that, Europe is looking to invest heavily in the defence sector. Our investments from that fund, which we want companies to tender for, will be in the form of maritime surveillance, satellite technology, communications and cybersecurity, key areas which are protecting our public infrastructure and letting us know and letting our Defence Forces know what is off our shores. Measures that will protect our subsea infrastructure have absolutely nothing to do with armaments that are going to Israel or the IDF.

We have a very clear export control policy, which I have pointed out is a separate argument to this issue. Export controls monitor everything exported from the State that has to get a licence of dual-use activity. That application process goes through my Department. Officials examine the end user of each of those products that are exported. If the Department working with the EU and working with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is not satisfied with that end user or what the product will be used for, the licence is refused. That is a separate issue.

I want to provide extreme clarity here on the European fund and not hide anything. This is funding to build capacity in our Defence Forces in terms of technology needed in cybersecurity, space technology, maritime surveillance and in manufacturing in those key areas. I want Irish firms to be able to get European funding to do that. It is not the funding the Deputy suggests which relates to other countries, which - I have been open about this - have different objectives. Some other countries in Europe are facing what they believe are existential threats on the defence side. That is a fact and they will say that. However, that is not the position that we are coming from. We are a neutral country. I, as a Minister, am very proud of our neutrality. I always stand by our neutrality and I would not do anything that would compromise that. I believe the actions we are taking here will facilitate our capacity in ensuring that the infrastructure we will build over next number of years is adequately protected and adequately resourced.

I am conscious that a number of other committee members may wish to contribute. We have had two exchanges on both sides. I am just being impartial and fair. Does anyone else wish to contribute before we move on to the next section?

It is a very important discussion to have because a serious decision is being made. This afternoon President Zelenskyy explicitly spoke about EU member states supporting companies or enabling companies to produce munitions that were then being used in the war in Ukraine to kill Ukrainian citizens. If we allow this to happen, could a similar company operating here be supported by the IDA or by Enterprise Ireland?

No, absolutely not.

Will the Minister tell me why we would not be in that situation?

Essentially, the President was referring to Russian-owned companies making components throughout Europe. The allegation is that those components are ending up in the Russian military complex through weapons manufacturing in Russia. That is present now and has nothing to do with this Bill. This Bill, in compliance with Government policy, our neutrality policy and the safeguards and control we have over our State agencies through robust legislation, allows Irish firms to tender for defensive measures for the Irish State. As I pointed out in our-----

I thank the Minister for clarifying that. When he says Irish companies, does it explicitly say Irish companies?

Another thing comes to mind. I absolutely agree about subsea cables, cyber, innovation and all that needs to be done in that area. As I think every citizen does, I want to see us as resilient as possible and to have as much control as we can within the State. Could we be in a situation where we financially support a start-up company to get to a certain size and it is then bought out? We would have made a big investment as a State, and the company could be bought out by a state that was a bad actor or whatever. We would have no control over who that company was sold to.

On the first matter, it is important to say that they are defensive measures. Second, Enterprise Ireland has a clear investor policy. We have discussed how the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, had to reprioritise its investments because of the awful tragedy in the Middle East. It is the same with any of the other State agencies. They have to be in line with the Government policy of a neutral country, and we are firm in that.

To answer the Deputy's question on the types of company, it is in compliance with the objectives of Enterprise Ireland and the IDA. The IDA relates to foreign direct investment, FDI, and Enterprise Ireland is looking for companies with the capacity to export at scale. Some of them are Irish companies. One company is a regulator for the European State Agency, ESA. We have companies at the cutting edge of technology in some of these fields that are protecting the State with information sharing, data sharing and cyber. I am not in any way talking about enabling war or capability in that regard. I am talking about defensive mechanisms so that Irish companies can work with our Defence Forces. If we are going to say that we want to put €1.5 billion or more in capital expenditure into our Defence Forces along with the recommendations of the commission, I think Irish firms should be part of that with regard to the technology that will required to protect so much of the infrastructure, particularly offshore.

It is just about ensuring that all the safeguards are there so that they do not end up in the wrong hands or there are not other unintended consequences.

I do not accept the assurances. The dual-use technology that went to the IDF is good evidence for not trusting it. I have no problem with protecting subsea cables but what the explanatory memorandum says of section 8 is that "formal Government approval before they engage in, or promote, any activity of a primarily military relevance." That is the problem. If you want to protect subsea cables, although I hear that certain large marine mammals are more problematic for our subsea cables than-----

Well, then the Deputy obviously does not agree with it when he is comparing it with that.

What?

There is no point in saying that he agrees with protecting subsea infrastructure and comparing it with marine life.

I am simply saying I would like to see detailed evidence about what exactly is happening vis-à-vis subsea cables. I do not have a problem with us protecting cables, but I have a major problem with us producing components for drones that are used by the Israeli regime to kill people.

We are not doing that.

Well-----

I will not let that go unchecked. We are not doing that. I want to be clear on that.

We did do it in 2023 and 2024.

No.

We did do it. Dual-use technology went to the IDF. That is a fact.

Where is the Deputy coming from with that being drone technology? Where is he getting that from?

I do not know for certain what it was, but-----

Exactly, he does not know, so he should not make allegations, and admit-----

It was dual-use technology that went to the IDF from this country.

I can tell the Deputy he is wrong. He is wrong to suggest-----

The Government did not want to give that information to The Currency until it used a freedom of information request.

Gentlemen-----

It is reckless in the extreme to suggest that our neutral country is involved in supplying drone technology to Israel to harm Palestinian people. That is wrong and the Deputy should not say things like that.

The Minister is describing digital technology as if it is innocent. He used the words "cyber technology", "digital" and "satellite". That is how they are killing people.

It is marine surveillance.

That is how they are killing people.

We have export licences to protect the State from that.

We should not have sent anything to the IDF.

The Deputy does not know what the nature of it was at the time. I cannot discuss particular-----

I know it surged during the genocide.

Well, that is inaccurate because there was a multi-annual contract with a particular company. I cannot say too much about it, but I can say that it is an independent regime that ensures and guarantees the end user. It is important we have that assurance on behalf of the State.

If the Minister thinks the Israelis can be trusted with whatever system our Government has set up as regards what the end user is going to use this stuff for, he is being naive, to put it mildly.

I cannot let that conversation go by. It seems very much indicated that the Government is hiding something or does not care what is happening in Israel. With all respect to the Deputy, he is not the only one who went out there. I went out there. I went out and saw what happened at the coalface, so why does he come in and make the assumptions that we do not care? We do care.

I did not say people did not.

He is assuming we do not care.

I am not assuming anything.

I was there. I met them at the coalface, and I saw what happened. To say I am part of a Government that is hiding something is highly offensive.

I would only say-----

I am not finished.

Excuse me.

The Deputy has had a fair say.

Fair enough. Apologies.

To come back to it, we should be focusing on the issue at hand rather than deriding people to get political points or clips out of it. The Deputy made a comment that he was afraid we wanted to go in this direction. We need to protect our State. That is a fact. Can we keep to the facts rather than trying to take the high moral ground and assuming or giving the impression that people in government do not care what is going on? That is completely and utterly wrong.

From an Opposition standpoint, I do not believe that the Government is acting in an underhanded way in any of this, to be fair to it. However, I have a suspicion that others would act in an underhanded way by hoodwinking our Government into providing something that was never its intention in the first place. That is a danger and something we need to careful of.

In the context of undersea cables, we could spend billions of euro on facilities to monitor undersea cables but at the end of the day we will not be in a position to do so as a nation, given our spend on defence in whatever area. We will not be in a position to protect our undersea cables. What happens then? Do we call on other actors within the European realm to do the protection? Do we seek their assistance? How does that impact on our neutrality and how does that impact on the influence or actions they will seek to carry out? To be fair, I do not think the Government's intention is to engage in any way with bad actors directly. My difficulty is the indirect consequences of what may happen if we are not careful. In terms of defence of our undersea cables, we have seen in other countries that a vast procedure is required. I do not think we as a nation will be in a position to protect our undersea cables without the assistance of others.

Would there be any chance of us being compromised in that regard? I have a concern about that.

It is fair to say that there are a number of different fronts, domestic and international, being discussed. We have a good flavour of the range of the debate. It is safe to say that everyone's voice has been heard and we have heard from the Minister. Would the members present be content to put the matter to the question? I appreciate that.

I thought we were just agreeing the Title. Have we agreed the Bill? The question in that regard was not put.

My understanding is that we agreed the Title. On behalf of the committee, I thank the Minister and his officials for attending.