I am happy to accept the additional lines to the motion. They are useful in so far as the next meeting when the issue will be discussed will be held in Cape Town in April. The advisory note from the Department of Foreign Affairs suggests the issues may not be at such an advanced stage to enable a substantiative final decision to be taken.
I regard this issue as one of the most important to come before the joint committee. After the next general election, no doubt the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs will be re-established. It will have to decide on how it will function. In some parliaments treaties are discussed in advance at committee level and then in plenary session. In others committees are in place for the implementation of treaties. In our Parliament the committee supplies information and engages with the public.
The fundamental principle at stake is nuclear proliferation. The non-nuclear proliferation treaty is perhaps one of the instruments for which Ireland is best known internationally. It came at a significant time both in the United Nations' history and in the development of the capacity for the planet's destruction. It was always about the elimination of nuclear weapons, not only proliferation to other countries. The failure of those states which possessed nuclear weapons to eliminate them was a serious erosion of the treaty. Of the five yearly reviews, the last was a particular failure. However, there were other moments in the treaty's history when an attempt was made to universalise it. Certainly, Ireland's participation in the New Agenda group took the treaty as the main building block to eliminate the nuclear threat to our planet. In 2000, when people considered the destructive capacity of nuclear weapons, they found that what had been produced and stockpiled had 1.5 million times the destructive capacity of the Hiroshima bomb.
Issues raised regarding the nuclear threat include security and the bogus concept of deterrence. It is suggested that one can secure one's existence on the planet only by having the same destructive capacity as those whom one regards as one's enemies. One could use deterrence in various ways: the notion was that one might have it in a limited form or, as is argued in Israel, leverage power through simple possession of the capacity.
However, the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs should never forget that the concept of deterrence through possession of nuclear weapons has been the biggest brake on the development of global security through diplomacy. Those who benefit from nuclear deterrents are the international armaments industry, and in the US-India nuclear agreement one senses the subtext of the €100 billion in United States exports to India.
I say this as a friend of India, and the nuclear issue should in no way compromise friendly relations, including on issues of trade. However, if we gave way regarding the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, we would do so as part of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which has 45 members and takes decisions by consensus. Ireland, by yielding, would facilitate a breach of the guidelines that the club of London has had regarding the supply of materials relevant to nuclear capacity.
I do not suggest that we should ask India to accept something that other countries have rejected regarding the use of nuclear materials. There are to be 22 installations, 14 of which will be civilian, while eight will be used for military purposes. We should consider the regional impact of nuclear testing and what it almost meant to global history. Three years after attempts to ban it, further tests were reported in India and Pakistan.
In that regard, to the Government's credit, last October it finally ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. It cannot come into existence as an effective instrument unless those who possess nuclear weapons agree, but that does not mean that we must surrender to the international armaments industry. We need not surrender the capacity or rights of diplomacy and foreign policy to those with the capacity for global and planetary destruction.
When Hans Blix attended the committee, he gave a presentation including a discussion on the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. He made several practical suggestions, for example, regarding the widely held notion that the International Atomic Energy Agency is somehow working to implement the treaty. It is not the secretariat to the treaty, and regarding international instruments to control weapons of mass destruction, it has no secretariat. That is what I mean when I refer to the universalising of the treaty. It is difficult to accept.
A distinguished microbiologist who works for the United Nations on preventing AIDS, made a presentation to the committee. This person is a scientist working on a humanitarian endeavour dealing with the consequences for continents affected by AIDS. When one considers the considerable resources and scientific intelligence diverted from addressing the main problems affecting the planet into this area, it is little less than a great failure. I refer not solely to the monetary resources needed to produce a destructive capacity 1.5 million times the effect of Hiroshima. Mr. El Baradei encourages us to think outside the box in an article that has been circulated to members of the committee. He argues that the non-signatories to the non-proliferation treaty — India, Pakistan and Israel — cannot be accused of being in breach of the treaty because they have not signed it. This is an exercise in casuistry. The meeting in Delhi referred to the importance of a new strategic ally and the dynamics of the sub-continent. Either one stands by the capacity to build global security driven by non-military means or one does not. We cannot afford to let go of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
In 1996 the International Court of Justice offered an advisory opinion that deterrence is illegal and immoral and that it is difficult to recommend possession of the capacity to implement destruction over which one has no control in terms of civilian death, future life on the planet and intergenerational destruction.
It is wrong to follow this road. The US-India agreement does not offer inspections of the Indian installations. Some eight installations are uninspected, eight remain out of international disciplines and eight become available as a destabilising contribution to unresolved disputes with neighbours. Does anyone believe that following this path will assist in identifying so-called rogue states? In 1945 two installations threatened planetary destruction but last year there were 35,700. We must move back from the trigger of these weapons and the spaces from where new threats, beyond all of us, will emerge.
I wish the people of India economic success and success in solving their problems. If they wish to use nuclear power as a means to produce energy that is their choice, though it would not be mine. It is wrong to facilitate a further departure from the non-nuclear proliferation treaty, through assent or otherwise, at the Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting. It is time we went beyond deterrence and reconstituted the social basis of security. We can do so when we have eliminated these threats. We must remember that in the end the choice is between our belief in the capacity of human beings to discuss with each other or further surrender to an armaments industry which deflects the resources of the world at times when we need resources released to deal with more humane issues.
