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The Minister for Trade and Development, Joe Costello TD, has described the pace of nuclear disarmament as too slow.

Minister Costello was speaking at a major disarmament conference at the Royal Irish Academy, organised by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, in association with University College Cork and the Embassy of Japan. The conference was also addressed by Ms Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima.

Minister Costello said:

“The humanitarian consequences of the use of nuclear weapons must become the guiding principle of international efforts to eliminate nuclear arsenals entirely.

“Recent research has revealed that the risk of an explosion happening through human error or systems failure is higher than previously thought. Because of the huge destructive capacity of modern nuclear weapons and the growing populations in urban areas, any attempt at managing the aftermath in a coordinated way would be utterly ineffectual.

“The pace of nuclear disarmament has been far too slow. Ireland is determined to see the fulfilment of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which calls for effective measures towards nuclear disarmament.”