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The Stormont Press Corps is more used than most to discussing what should or should not be done about arms. But generally it's concerned paramilitaries and whether they will or won't destroy their weapons. I started today in the Stormont Long Gallery at a different kind of arms debate.

Amnesty International has compiled a survey of the range of NI based arms exporters. Amnesty's NI Director Patrick Corrigan told an audience which included MLAs such as Carmel Hanna, Dawn Purvis and Martina Anderson that he believes Northern Ireland is playing "an increasingly significant part in the global arms trade". He claims local companies are involved in arming regimes with "atrocious human rights records" such as Burma and Zimbabwe.

Amnesty wants Invest NI to apply human rights conditions to any support used to finance such exports. It
has also called for the Northern Ireland assembly to be given a role in retrospectively scrutinising export licenses granted to firms here manufacturing military security and police equipment. It believes the OFMDFM should report annually on the matter.

However the OFMDFM minister Ian Paisley Jr. takes a dim view. He argues that arms export licenses are a reserved matter and should remain so.

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