Irish firm linked to nuclear tests

national | miscellaneous | news report

Tuesday December 03, 2002 23:04

by Eoin Dubsky - Trident Ploughshares

dubskye2 at mail dot dcu dot ie

087 6941060

Read it in today's Irish Examiner...

Confidential documents, seen by the Irish Examiner, reveal Compaq in Galway has contracts with the French nuclear weapons programme as well as all three US nuclear weapons labs Los Alamos, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore. (Photo: Boy carrying small burned child Nagasaki, August 1945)

Pick up a copy of today's Irish Examiner if you can (tomorrow morning even) -- Michael O'Farrell has written a brilliant, detailed article about the role of Compaq's super computer unit in Galway (Compaq HPTC) in US and French nuclear weapons development.

The Irish export licensing regime for weapons and "dual-use" products must be a complete joke. A quick Google search (keywords: Compaq HPTC nuclear) could have told the folks at the Department of Trade that the high performace technical computing work being done in Galway is related to developing nukes.

In his article, O'Farrell reveals that the Department actually spoke to a number of people in Compaq when the HPTC unit was being setup there and were satisfied after these telephone conversations that no further investigation was felt necessary.

What's the point in having some Irish civil servants and politicians busting their balls to push for nuclear disarmament internationally, when their colleagues can't even make sure Irish firms aren't actually part of new nuclear weapons research and development. Any enquiry into this will show that our export licensing regime needs radical change and the high-tech industry needs to be kept under a closer watch!

If the State doesn't immediately put a stop to any nuclear weapons-related work at Compaq in Galway it will have to be stopped by others.