Amnesty International has called on the Government to introduce legislation and other controls as a matter of urgency to ensure Irish firms are not exporting so-called Military, Security and Police (MSP) technologies for use by countries with poor human rights records.
In a report published yesterday, Amnesty International expresses grave concern about the lack of transparency and accountability in the system of granting licences for exporting such goods and services.
Ireland and the Arms Trade - Decoding the Deals concludes:
"If a country had deliberately set up a system of licence control which was specifically designed to frustrate parliamentary scrutiny and discover the level and extent of the current MSP business, it would probably design something like the present Irish system."
Products of concern include computer software, electronic components, radio equipment, surveillance technologies and suspension systems for armoured vehicles.
The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (DETE) issued 416 military export licences and 739 licences for so-called "dual-use" products, which may have a military use, last year.
However, despite attempts to contact the firms involved and to seek clarification of licensing information from the DETE, Amnesty could not establish definitively in many cases whether the goods ended up in the hands of repressive regimes.
Amnesty does not oppose the arms trade per se, recognising that countries have a legitimate right to defend themselves from aggression.
However, it expresses concern that goods or products manufactured in Ireland may end up in countries such as China, Turkey, Albania, South Africa or Algeria - countries specifically linked with abuses of human rights.
The report estimates that about 53 companies in Ireland are involved in manufacturing, distributing, supplying or brokering MSP products or services. However, it did not wish to suggest that any of them were doing anything wrong, since they have legitimate business interests.
Rejecting the DETE's contention that Ireland does not have an arms trade in the conventional sense, the report's researcher, Mr Pete Able said: "The Irish Government seems to want to focus very narrowly on the arms trade (and products) such as fighter planes and naval freighters. In that sense, no, Ireland does not have an arms trade."
Ireland did export technologies and products to other countries, which in some cases had quite legitimate uses or were being used by security forces.
In many cases, however, it was "legitimate" security forces who were responsible for the greatest human rights abuses.
Amnesty said there was no reason why the DETE could not provide sufficient information on licences granted to enable parliament and the public to establish the actual "end use" information about products. A single licence may cover the export of an unquantified amount of goods, which may end up in military use.
Amnesty found huge confusion in the numeric and alphabetic codes allocated to specific export items and differences in classifications between the DETE and the Central Statistics Office.
A particular component of concern to Amnesty was a "data bus" used to help complex electronic systems to interact with each other. It is used in the AH-64 Apache Attack helicopter, which has been transferred to both Israel and Turkey by the US. Amnesty has expressed concerns about the human rights records of both countries.
The data bus is manufactured by the US Data Device Corporation, which has production facilities in Cork. However, despite inquiries, Amnesty could not establish if the product is made here. The parent company describes the component as the "life line" of the attack helicopter. Amnesty describes responses from the DETE and from a number of firms to which it wrote seeking information as "unhelpful".
What the report describes as "word games and sophistry" by Government departments did little to encourage accountability and only served to reinforce the impression that "exports are being authorised which the Government does not want to disclose".