I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
This is important but rather technical legislation which will enable Ireland to play its part in strengthening the international policy arrangements designed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
Ireland has long played an active role in international efforts to further the cause of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. The key to this has been the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the NPT, which came into effect in 1970. The NPT is the cornerstone of the global non-proliferation regime and the essential foundation for the pursuit of nuclear disarmament. The objective of the NPT is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote co-operation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament.
A central provision of the NPT is the implementation of safeguards agreements between states and the International Atomic Energy Agency – the IAEA. The IAEA safeguards system, pursued under these agreements, is aimed at ensuring that nuclear materials and nuclear equipment intended for peaceful use are not used for the production of nuclear weapons. It is the means by which the IAEA verifies that states are acting in compliance with their international non-proliferation obligations, primarily through the collection and reporting of information in relation to goods and materials related to the nuclear industry.
A fundamental objective of Ireland's foreign policy is to uphold the NPT and its non-proliferation regime. At this juncture, our concern is that without serious strengthened safeguards to underpin its purposes and provisions, the NPT will wither and die through complacency and neglect.
The Bill will transpose into domestic law a Protocol signed by Ireland and the 12 other non-nuclear weapons states of the EU in September 1998 with the IAEA. This Protocol to the Safeguards Agreement is aimed at strengthening the existing Safeguards Agreement.
Under the safeguards agreements, the IAEA establishes an inventory of nuclear materials on the basis of information provided by the states. In addition, IAEA inspectors regularly visit states' facilities to verify records which state authorities keep on the whereabouts of nuclear material under their control; to check IAEA installed instruments and surveillance equipment, and to confirm physical inventories of nuclear material. This basic tool of nuclear material accountancy employed by the IAEA relates to safeguards material declared by a State pursuant to the Safeguards Agreement. It establishes the quantities of nuclear material present in a nuclear facility and the changes in these quantities that take place over time, it is comparable in both concept and procedures to a financial accounting system.
The current Safeguards Agreement between the EU, the non-nuclear weapons states of the EU and the IAEA has direct operational implications for Ireland only in respect of certain insignificant quantities of fissionable material held at University College, Dublin, and University College, Cork. In accordance with the existing agreement, these materials have undergone inspection by EU inspectors on behalf of the IAEA.
Under the existing safeguards agreements, the capability of the IAEA to detect undeclared nuclear activities is limited. IAEA inspectors are not currently permitted to carry out random searches for undeclared nuclear material or clandestine nuclear activities.
As a consequence of the Gulf War, elements of an Iraqi programme to develop nuclear weapons were discovered. About the same time, accounting irregularities in respect of North Korean nuclear materials were also revealed. These two states are parties to the NPT and appropriate measures have been taken by the UN Security Council to deal with these cases of non-compliance with NPT obligations. Neither of these cases, however, has been fully resolved to date. While there has been no new allegation of non-compliance by non-nuclear weapons states, the satisfactory resolution of earlier cases remains a matter of concern to Ireland. Since these discoveries, which demonstrated the shortcomings of the existing safeguards agreements, the IAEA Secretariat and the IAEA member states have been working to introduce a strengthened and more rigorous inspection and verification system.
Some new measures have been implemented within the legal authority of the existing safeguards agreements. In addition, a model protocol additional to the Safeguards Agreement was approved by the IAEA's board of governors in May 1997. The model protocol which Ireland and the 12 other non-nuclear weapons states of the EU signed up to in 1998 with the IAEA embodies new and more powerful measures to help the IAEA verify compliance by states with its safeguards undertakings.
The Protocol's measures include, inter alia, the obligation to provide additional information on nuclear and nuclear-related activities, additional access to locations not currently subject to safeguards and the use of new verification techniques. The objective is to alert the international community more quickly and efficiently to the possibility of undeclared nuclear activities and to improve the level of confidence about the absence of such activities. It is the Government's strong wish that Ireland ratifies the model Protocol as soon as possible and this Bill will provide for its ratification and for its implementation in Ireland.
Early ratification of the Protocol is in line, not only with Ireland's long-standing position on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, but also with our position on nuclear safety. The IAEA plays a vital role in promoting nuclear safety worldwide. Over the years it has developed common safety standards in regard to nuclear safety and radiation protection and has fostered information exchange between its member states. In the IAEA, Ireland has been to the forefront in promoting international conventions on the management of radioactive waste and nuclear safety. Ireland, which has taken a seat on the IAEA board of governors in September last, has always strongly supported the IAEA's nuclear safety and radiological protection activities.
The NPT, as the House will be aware, was inspired by a series of resolutions put to the UN General Assembly by the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Frank Aiken, beginning in 1959. It was opened for signature in 1968, and since then the number of states party to it has steadily increased, to the point where today only four states remain outside it – India, Pakistan, Israel and Cuba, although Cuba is party to other international nuclear non-proliferation agreements.
The obligations of the NPT are twofold. For those states who adhered to it and had not already in 1967 acquired nuclear weapons, there was an obligation to refrain from the acquisition of nuclear weapons and to subject all activities which involved fissile nuclear material under their jurisdiction to inspection. The implementation of these obligations requires states to accept inspections by the "Safeguards" inspectors of the IAEA.
For those five states that had already acquired nuclear weapons, the United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom, there is an obligation to end the nuclear arms race and to engage in negotiations leading to the elimination of their nuclear weapons. The NPT also includes guarantees of the right of states to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, and the concomitant obligation to have a safeguards agreement with the IAEA.
Conferences to review the operations of the NPT have been held at five-year intervals since it came into force in 1970. The NPT also included a provision for the convening of a conference 25 years after its entry into force to decide whether it should continue in force indefinitely. The 1995 review and the extension conference decided that the NPT should continue in force indefinitely. It also took the decision, as part of an overall package, to include a series of principles and objectives for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, a strengthened review process and a resolution on achieving a nuclear weapons free zone in the Middle East.
The first review conference since the indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995 took place in April and May of last year. The Minister for Foreign Affairs led the Irish delegation. This conference demonstrated a commitment by 182 states to refrain from the acquisition of nuclear weapons, which is a singular achievement. Unfortunately, the goal of the treaty to achieve the total elimination of nuclear weapons has not been realised.
The NPT has provided the states that have refrained from the development of nuclear weapons with assurances that others would exercise similar restraint. The non-nuclear weapons states, party to the NPT, have implemented these NPT undertakings in the context of corresponding legally binding commitments by the nuclear weapons states to eliminate their weapons. That is the underlying bargain of the NPT, which is copperfastened by the IAEA safeguards regime.
On each of the five previous occasions when the states parties met to review the implementation of the NPT, the non-nuclear weapons states have insisted that the nuclear weapons states demonstrate greater determination to achieve the goal of a nuclear weapons free world. The policy statement, Towards a Nuclear-Weapons Free World: the Need for a new Agenda, was originally put forward by Ireland and six other countries. This has now been co-sponsored by no less than 60 states of the UN. Its aim is to accelerate progress. At the review conference last year the Irish delegation called for a fundamental change in approach if we are to achieve a world without nuclear arms and outlined the reasons why Ireland had launched the New Agenda initiative, stating that "a decade after the end of the Cold War it has become clear that neither nuclear strategies nor arms controls efforts were predicated on the elimination of nuclear weapons at an early date."
The New Agenda is a full agenda, and sets down those steps that must be taken to realise the establishment of a nuclear weapons free world. That includes, in particular, the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the CTBT, and the negotiation of a treaty banning the production of fissile material for weapons purposes, the cut-off treaty, or FMCT. The current treaty structure – the NPT and the treaty banning nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water – has had considerable successes in limiting the number of nuclear weapons states. However, that structure left a clear gap by permitting the nuclear weapons states to continue testing new weapons underground. The solution to this problem was found in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which removes the anomaly by forbidding all nuclear weapons tests anywhere. For this reason Ireland has long been a consistent and active supporter of this treaty.
Ireland and its EU partners have expressed their deep regret at the failure of the US Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The treaty cannot enter into force without the ratification of the US. It would be an empty treaty without American adherence. However, the previous US Administration's commitment to ratify the treaty, as well as its announcement that the US will abide by the moratorium on nuclear testing, in place since 1992, is to be welcomed.
The New Agenda is a call for a fundamental shift in attitude on the part of the nuclear weapons states. It calls upon them to "make an unequivocal undertaking to the total elimination of their respective nuclear weapons." The second commitment of the New Agenda is to give sub stance to that commitment in a programme of action.
The New Agenda also calls for the nuclear weapons states to engage in measures which would contribute to strategic stability in the interim until nuclear weapons are eliminated. These include measures to reduce current hair-trigger status of weapons systems by de-alerting and then proceeding in time to removing warheads from delivery vehicles. There is also a call for the revision of nuclear war fighting doctrines, which are currently premised on the first use of nuclear weapons and the demand for the removal of tactical, or battlefield, nuclear weapons – archetypically first use weapons – from deployment pending their elimination.
The NPT review conference of last year produced an agreed final document which reinforced the underlying bargain of the NPT. States which have refrained from developing nuclear weapons have received an unequivocal commitment from the nuclear weapons states that they will accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear weapons through a number of steps laid out in the document. However, we must not be lulled into a sense of complacency by the achievement of an agreed programme of action. This programme represents a clear obligation to make nuclear disarmament a reality and for our part Ireland is determined to work vigorously to achieve this goal.
The final document contains much of the New Agenda objectives, and the adoption of an agreed final document with progressive language can be seen as a significant breakthrough. The NPT conference secured a new commitment from the nuclear weapons states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. This commitment, along with the recent ratification of START II by the Russian Federation and the promise of early negotiations on a START III, augers well for the future.
Over the past year we have witnessed many positive developments in the area of nuclear disarmament. We salute the US and the Russian Federation for the bilateral nuclear force reductions which they have undertaken to date and we encourage them to engage in the next steps with renewed vigour. Ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has been adopted by the Russian Parliament. With the ratification of the treaty by the two nuclear weapons states that are members of the EU – France and the UK – we have moved closer to establishing a norm that nuclear testing has no place on our small planet.
It is important for countries, such as Ireland, which are at the forefront of the disarmament debate, to demonstrate their commitment to the NPT and its mechanisms. Early ratification and implementation of the Protocol to the Safeguards Agreement, which this legislation will enable us to do, is, therefore, a priority of the Government. The Bill allocates responsibility for the implementation of Ireland's obligations under the strengthened Safeguards Agreement to the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland. The relevant Departments will support the institute in the collection and reporting of material for relevant dual use products, which are products that can be used for civil or military purposes. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment will be responsible for the licensing of, and reporting of relevant information with regard to products which are exported. The Revenue Commissioners will conduct the monitoring and reporting with regard to information concerning the import of any materials and equipment coming within the scope of the protocol.
The Bill will also provide for the granting of access to international inspectors, including, as appropriate, managed access to locations, facilities or sites to which the protocol applies. Verification arrangements are crucial to the IAEA safeguards system. Provision will also be made to give the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland, the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment and the Revenue Commissioners powers to appoint inspectors and conduct inspections in conjunction with IAEA inspectors.
There will also be a requirement on any person involved in areas to which the protocol applies to provide the prescribed information at the prescribed time and in the prescribed format. The Government also intends to make provision to regulate, by a system of prior licence, the manufacture, acquisition and use of all reportable material, as listed in Article 2, Annexes I and II of the protocol. The purpose of licensing is to facilitate full disclosure and assurance of the provision of relevant information under the protocol.
The threat of nuclear weapons is still with us. If we are ever to rid the world of the threat of nuclear annihilation we must build an international regime which can, with confidence, detect nuclear weapons development programmes and provide assurances about their absence. The strengthened safeguard system which we are seeking to implement through this Bill will play a fundamental role in this. I commend the Bill to the House.
