ANALYSIS:HOW MUCH military hardware and sensitive technologies do Irish companies sell to Libya, Syria, Iran, China or Israel every year?
This is a simple question which, under Irish law, should be easily answered by reading an annual report on military and dual-use exports compiled by the Department of Enterprise.
But despite repeated pledges by successive ministers to publish annual returns containing the value and destination of all military and dual-use exports, the information remains a secret.
In early 2009, Amnesty International was told the 2008 annual report would be published that summer. In February 2010, The Irish Times was told the reports would be published “shortly”.
Last month, the department refused a freedom of information application by this newspaper for the annual reports and basic information on the total value of military exports in 2010.
The number and value of military and dual-use licences in 2010 was finally released yesterday following a Dáil question by Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin. But the annual reports and the information on the destination for all military and dual-use exports have not been released.
The Control of Exports Act, passed into law in 2008, was designed to close loopholes in Irish law that had prompted fears that arms brokers were operating in Ireland and selling weapons to rogue regimes that were under arms embargoes.
A few years earlier Amnesty International had highlighted how notorious Ukrainian arms broker Leonid Minim was listed as a shareholder of an Irish-registered company Limid Invest. The arms trafficker’s extensive client list is reputed to have included the Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, who is currently standing trial for war crimes in the Hague.
More recently, three people working for Sligo-based firm Mac Aviation were charged in the US with buying helicopter engines and other aircraft parts from US suppliers and illegally exporting them to Iran.
The indictment names Mac Aviation’s owner Thomas McGuinn; his son Seán, the company’s sales/procurement director; and Seán Byrne, its commercial manager.
This is the second time Thomas McGuinn has been in trouble for allegedly flouting export rules. He was convicted in Florida in 1994 for exporting night-vision goggles for helicopter pilots to Iran in contravention of an embargo.
Amnesty International says it has no problems with Irish firms exporting weapons or dual-use goods. But, given the danger that sensitive technologies or weapons could end up in the wrong hands, it says it is critical the Government complies with its own rules on transparency and disclosure.
The Department of Enterprise should now publish the annual reports on military and dual-use exports for 2008, 2009 and 2010 to prove firms are complying with the export rules once and for all.
