The Government’s Industrial Development (Amendment) and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2026 consists of amendments to the Science and Technology Act 1987 that will take away controls and oversight on arms industries in Ireland.
The Government’s laws would take away Section 8, subsection 5 of the Science and Technology Act 1987. This part of the present laws states that State businesses ‘shall not engage in or promote any activity of a primarily military relevance without the prior approval of the Government.’
This Government modification to its personal laws was launched after completion of Pre-Legislative Scrutiny by the Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment.
People Before Profit’s Richard Boyd Barrett has submitted amendments to the Government’s Bill which intention to forestall the proposed elimination of oversights and controls on the arms business. These are the one amendments submitted by opposition events.
Deputy Boyd Barrett will name a vote on his modification which seeks to forestall the Government deleting Section 8(5) of the Science and Technology Act 1987 when the Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment resumes its deliberations on the Government’s Bill on 1st July.
At the opening session of the committee stage of the invoice this afternoon, Deputy Boyd Barrett had an prolonged debate with Minister Peter Burke in relation to his amendments.
Deputy Boyd Barrett stated:
“The Government’s Industrial Development (Amendment) and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2026 includes alarming proposals to reduce oversight and controls on the arms industry in the State.
“A Bill that is supposedly about supporting enterprise and industry is being used to smuggle in something very sinister. The Government added a provision to its own legislation, after the completion of Pre Legislative Scrutiny, to remove the requirement for state agencies to have government approval to engage in or promote any activity of a primarily military relevance.
“The Government’s legislative sleight of hand could also facilitate state-funded contributions to Israel’s genocide and war crimes. It is deeply disturbing that this comes shortly after we learned of the export of tens of millions worth of dual-use technologies from Ireland to Israel’s military, in the mist of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“The Irish Government wants to reduce the obligation on State agencies which might be engaged with companies in the production of that kind of technology from having to seek Government authorisation. This is truly alarming and my deep concerns are exacerbated by the fact that this was not in the original draft scheme of the Bill.
“This demonstrates once again why the Government cannot be trusted with Irish neutrality, cannot be trusted not to engage in war profiteering, and cannot be trusted not to be complicit with genocidal crimes being committed by the likes of the Israeli state.
“I raised these issues with Minister Peter Burke in the Committee on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment today and I will be calling a vote on my amendment to prevent the Government removing oversights of arms industry at the next meeting of the committee on 1st July.”