Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 7 Mar 1991

Vol. 406 No. 2

ACP-EEC Convention: Motion

Minister for State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (Mr. Calleary)

I move:

That Dáil Éireann approves the terms of the fourth ACP-EEC Convention, signed on 15th December, 1989, together with the related internal agreement on the financing and administration of community aid, signed on 16th July, 1990, copies of which have been laid before the Dáil.

The ACP-EEC convention or Lome Convention, to give it its short and better known title, is a wide ranging and detailed agreement on economic, social and cultural matters between the EC and the members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of nations.

The Lome Convention is the Community's most important instrument of development policy and for this reason I am particularly pleased to be seeking the approval of the Dáil for this motion in support of the Convention. The detailed provisions of this, the fourth such agreement, are intended, as stated in the first article of the agreement, "to promote and expedite the economic, cultural and social development of the ACP States and to consolidate and diversify the relations between the Community and the ACP States in a spirit of solidarity and mutual interest".

The Lome Convention represents both a consolidation of the achievements of its predecessors and a significant development of the depth and scope of the Community's relations with the ACP States. The agreements have grown out of the earlier Yaoundé Conventions of the sixties between the original six member states of the EC, and a number of their former colonies, for the most part in French-speaking West Africa. Work on a more ambitious association agreement followed between an enlarged EC and an enlarged group of countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. The first ACP-EEC Convention was signed in Lome, the capital of Togo on 28 February 1975.

The Lomé Conventions, in contrast to the previous Yaoundé Convention, have granted free non-reciprocal access to the Community market for almost all ACP products. In addition, considerable financial and technical assistance has been made available for a wide range of ACP projects, primarily in the agricultural and industrial sectors. One additional and significant innovation in 1975 was the introduction of a system to guarantee compensation for losses in basic commodity export earnings of ACP countries. The scheme, known as STABEX, covered a range of agricultural commodities and was designed to alleviate the worst effects which fluctuations in world market prices have on the export earnings of those developing countries. In view of the often dominant element in export earnings which these basic commodities represent, the value of the STABEX system is very clear.

The Second Lomé Convention was signed in 1979. A new feature of Lomé II was the introduction of the SYSMIN system, to assist ACP countries, whose economies were heavily dependent on the export of minerals to the Community, and who had not benefited greatly from the STABEX system.

The negotiations regarding Lomé III followed a similar pattern with the fundamental lines of the previous agreement confirmed and improved, where possible, and progress made on emphasising new areas of important joint co-operation. Thus agricultural development, and in particular food security and food self-sufficiency, were accorded particular importance. Lomé III also made resources available for the first time to take steps to deal with drought and desertification. Social and cultural matters and respect for human rights were also provided for in the new convention.

Lomé III also introduced a more comprehensive system of financial and technical co-operation with the intention of providing more effective aid, not just for projects but to whole sectors of the recipient countries' economies. The Community was also able to provide a small real increase in the overall level of financial aid contained in the agreement.

The negotiations for the new agreement, Lomé IV, took place against the background of serious economic difficulties for most ACP States which resulted from a continuing decline in commodity prices and increasing indebtedness. It was not surprising that these negotiations were long and complicated, and only finalised immediately prior to the signing ceremony. Following five ministerial negotiating conferences, the last of which took place at the end of November 1989, the Convention was signed in Lomé on 15 December 1989 by the EEC and ACP States involved.

The final agreement was welcomed by all involved in the process but praise is especially due to the efforts of the French Presidency, and in particular to the Foreign Minister, M. Dumas, for bringing the negotiations to a successful conclusion.

Since that time the Irish Presidency successfully presided over the Community negotiations both for the extensive transitional arrangements which implement many of the most important provisions of Lomé IV in advance, and also for the internal agreement on financing Community aid.

As I have indicated, the new Lomé Convention, while drawing on the achievements of its predecessors and improving and expanding the areas of co-operation, is a very comprehensive agreement. It encompasses the entire scope of our trade, co-operation and assistance to the ACP countries. Accordingly, I do not intend to go through the various provisions in detail. What I would wish to do, however, would be to highlight some of the new or significantly improved provisions of this Fourth Convention which represent the Community's continued and increased commitment to the development of the ACP group of nations.

One of the innovations of Lomé IV is, in fact, its duration. Previous conventions have been of five years duration but for the first time, we now have a Convention that will endure for ten. This will provide for greater stability in ACP-EEC relations and facilitate more long-term planning for the enhancement of co-operation between both sides. To ensure that the accord can adapt to changing circumstances within these ten years a built-in flexibility has been added. Towards the end of the first five year period, a new financial protocol will be negotiated for the second five year period of the Convention and, at the same time, either party can request a review of the other clauses of the agreement if this proves necessary.

Turning now to the level of aid proposed in the Convention, it is very commendable that, in an international economic environment which was not favourable to increasing aid, the Community's financial contribution has more than kept pace with inflation. In actual figures the amount for the first five years of Lomé IV will involve 12 billion ECU compared with 8.5 billion ECU under Lomé III, an increase of over 40 per cent in nominal terms and over 20 per cent in real terms. While the ACP States would, no doubt, wish that the overall amount could be larger, nevertheless they recognize the highly concessional nature of the finance available. Indeed, this has been increased with the removal of the necessity for the ACP States to repay STABEX transfers and with the provision of grants rather than loans for structural adjustment. So far as Ireland is concerned, our financial contribution to the Convention over the first five year period will be 60.17 million ECU — approximately IR £46.8 million.

Agricultural co-operation and rural development remain at the heart of the new Convention but within the framework of a new recognition of the regional dimension of food security. Thus food production and supply will be stimulated at national, regional and inter-regional levels. Food self-sufficiency will be promoted by improving productivity and aiming to guarantee adequate incomes in the rural sector.

In the area of trade, significant progress was made after particularly difficult negotiations. The new convention recognises both the needs of the ACP countries and the position of many Community states which are producers of products being exported by the ACP. All ACP industrial products and almost all agricultural products enter the Community free of duties. Despite difficult negotiations, the list of agricultural products was expanded, while rules of origin for industrial goods were liberalised. In addition the general principles of commercial co-operation were significantly improved. A new departure has also seen agreement to establish a trade development service with the task of developing and promoting ACP trade in the Community market. This particular development is of considerable importance to the ACP group. They consider that this unit will play a significant role in ensuring that they improve their position in the EC market, particularly in view of the advent of the Single European Market and the likely conclusions of the latest round of GATT negotiations. In addition to the limited extension of the list of products, the Community and the ACP states have committed themselves to increasing participation by the ACP states in the processing, marketing and distribution of their exports.

In relation to two other important areas of the convention, the STABEX and SYSMIN systems to which I referred earlier, and which try to alleviate fluctuations in commodity and mineral export earnings, I am glad to say that these are improvements of real value. While the ACP States would have wished for an increase in both the number of projects eligible as well as securing the maximum possible amount devoted to the STABEX fund, nonetheless they recognise and acknowledge the progress made. In particular regarding STABEX they welcomed the removal of the obligation to replenish the fund and the very significant increase in the resources devoted to the system which will be underwritten by 1,500 MECU — £1,154 million — compared to 925 MECU — £711 million — under Lomé III. Modifications to the SYSMIN system, and the inclusion of uranium and gold, are also significant.

The Convention has recognised the debt problems which exist for many ACP countries, and also the steps being taken, through structural economic reform, to tackle fundamental economic problems, of which the debt problem is only a part. Lome IV can only have a limited direct effect on the debt problem as the ACP debt to the Community — as opposed to its individual member states — is very limited. Outside the context of the convention the Community is considering the possibility of further concessions on the relatively small amount of ACP debt to the Community. In the meantime the Convention will provide specific financial supports to assist structural reform where ACP states wish to place their economies on a more viable footing. This is in addition to the existing long-term development financing. This support follows on from the Community's experience in providing a special programme to assist adjustment in the heavily indebted countries of Sub-Saharan Africa; 1,150 MECU — £884 million — will be available to support those countries engaging in significant economic reform and to cushion the effects of this reform on vulnerable groups. However, I emphasise that the bulk of the Community's aid will not be conditional on such reform.

The Community's assistance for structural adjustment will be closely co-ordinated with other donors such as the World Bank. It will enable the Community to have a real influence in the design of structural adjustment programmes and to ensure that, in co-operation with these other institutions, the social consequences of adjustment are fully taken into account.

Protection of the environment is one of the most important challenges the world faces today. The new Convention recognises this concern with significantly enhanced emphasis being given to the preservation of the natural heritage of ACP states. Co-operation in matters of the environment has become the subject of a specific title in the Convention designed to ensure that economic and social development is based on a sustainable balance between economic objectives, management of natural resources and enhancement of human resources. In addition to providing support to projects which preserve the environment, all projects will be assessed for their environmental impact. Already one tangible achievement is the prohibition of the export of toxic and radioactive waste from the Community to the ACP countries.

Respect for human rights, which was treated in an annex of Lomé III, has been strongly reinforced in the new Convention. It now forms part of the main body of the agreement. It is recognised as a basic factor of real development. Co-operation is explicitly recognised as entailing respect for all human rights. Furthermore the contracting parties reaffirm their existing obligations and their commitments in international law to strive to eliminate all forms of discrimination.

Provisions on the role of women in development have also been strengthened. Recognition of the role of women, both as agents as well as beneficiaries of the entire development process, is a crosscutting issue which is accommodated throughout the Convention as well as being the subject of a specific article.

Needless to say, the provisions to deal with emergencies and refugees in the previous conventions have been retained — and indeed improved, as they now embrace persons displaced within their own countries as well as cross-border refugees.

Concern has sometimes been expressed that the need to assist countries in Eastern Europe will distract the Community's attention from the developing world. I should like to take this opportunity to assure the House that those developments will not undermine in any way the Community's commitment. Our contractual relationship with the ACP states is absolutely firm and the convention is their guarantee. At the signing ceremony for the new convention, both the Vice-President of the Commission, Mr. Marin, and the then President of the Council, the French Prime Minister Mr. Recard emphasised that the improvement of our relations with Eastern European countries is perfectly compatible with increased support for development of ACP countries. During our own Presidency, I reassured the ACP-EEC Joint Assembly as well as the ACP-EEC Council of Ministers that our relations with the countries of Eastern Europe and with the ACP group are complementary, not competitive. The volume of resources which the Community has devoted to the convention is ample evidence of this.

As President of the Council in the first half of 1990 I also reassured the ACP States that the completion of the Internal Market is not designed to cut the Community off from the rest of the world. Nor will it damage the economic interest of the ACP states, or affect the commitments we have entered into with them. A Single European Market can be an important source of economic growth and consequently it can provide new trade opportunities in which the ACP and other developing countries can share.

This is not to deny that difficulties will undoubtedly arise from the structural weakness of many ACP economies faced with tough international competition. This is why the Irish Presidency assured the ACP countries of the Community's wish to help them in using to the full the instruments of the Convention for the improvement of their competitive position.

Where our ACP partners have genuine concerns, the Community is prepared to assist them to overcome concrete difficulties which may arise for them. The new convention provides an unrivalled framework in which this co-operation can take place.

Finally I would like the House, by approving the terms of the Convention, to welcome Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Namibia as the newest members of the Convention. The ACP states now number 69. I hope that Namibia's accession may consolidate its happy and peaceful transition to independence and democracy. Although the negotiations within the Community on the terms of its accession were sometimes difficult, we have played an honourable role, consistent with our support for Namibia over many years.

I would like to conclude by referring to the special position which Ireland, and my predecessors in the Department of Foreign Affairs, had in relation to the previous Lomé conventions. In the case of each of these, Lomé I, II and III, Ireland held the Presidency of the European Communities during the period when each Convention was being finalised and signed, and these efforts were concluded each time with complete success. In the case of the current Convention Ireland has, for the first time not actually presided over the completion of the negotiations. Nevertheless, as I indicated earlier the period of our Presidency was marked by conclusion of internal agreements necessary for ratification of this Convention. Ireland has therefore once again played a significant and positive role in the continued success of this very important instrument of development policy.

I recommend that this House approve the terms of the Fourth ACP-EEC Convention.

Mrs. Owen

I welcome the opportunity to ratify the Lomé IV Convention which was signed on 15 December 1989. The Convention marks the 15th year of ACP-EEC co-operation. I too welcome the fact that the life of this Convention is for ten years although the financial protocol will be negotiated after the first five, which gives a certain amount of flexibility. I urge the Minister and anyone who may succeed him in the Department to ensure that the renegotiation which will take place in five years time will not in any way take away from the Convention that has now been signed.

The number of African, Caribbean and Pacific states participating has grown in the 15 year period from 45 to 69, the most recent countries to sign being Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Namibia. I particularly welcome the inclusion of Namibia in this Convention. The independence of Namibia was warmly welcome throughout the world. It is hoped that it can achieve the necessary assistance it requires to ensure that it can sustain its independence and make it work. It is in the interests of all the states in Southern Africa that Namibia survives and manages to sustain its independence without fear of domination by South Africa. The nations which supported Namibia's struggle for independence, including Ireland, have an obligation to put their money where their mouths were during all those years and ensure that Namibia gets a fair hearing in this Convention.

It is true to say that this Convention has been signed at a time when there has not been growth in nearly all the ACP countries. A figure of £90 billion has been placed on the indebtedness of the 69 countries. In ACP countries there are more slums, more poor people, more illness, more deaths, more drug abuse and diseases such as AIDS. By and large it is fair to say that over the past 15 years the number of health centres and schools in some countries has decresed due to such factors as internal strife and war and also because they have not been able to sustain the development they have achieved.

Although many of the ACP countries have benefited, particularly in the educational field, and there is an output of more skilled people, unfortunately these people are leaving the ACP countries and gaining employment in the developed world. This is a sad reflection on the structural positions in those countries. Many ACP countries are still counting their skilled personnel in tens rather than in thousands. This is perhaps an indictment of the transfer of administrative and technological skills to these countries. The Convention, in examining the projects which will be funded, must put a great deal of emphasis on administration skills and on using as effectively as possible the large sums of money going into these countries. The amount of money involved in the Marshall Plan after the Second World War would not amount to the sum which has gone into the four Lomé Conventions. However, the difference is that the people who administered the Marshall Plan were absolutely determined that the money would be used effectively to restructure the economies and build up the social infrastructures of the countries concerned. Why is it that, in spite of the amount of money which has been given to the ACP countries, so many of them have gone backwards instead of forwards? One could not compare any ACP country to Germany now.

It is unfortunate that we are being asked to ratify this Convention at a time when this Government have presided over the worst cuts in Irish ODA programmes. Since 1987 there has been a steady decline in the amount of aid given to these countries as a percentage of GNP to the point that in 1990 we only contributed 0.158 per cent of GNP compared with the high figure — I use that word advisedly — of 0.256 per cent in 1985. Unfortunately the main cuts have been in our bilateral aid programme and the co-financing for non-governmental agencies which bring such credit to this country in the work they do. Our bilateral aid programme is the only programme over which we have real control. Our other multilateral payments are paid as part of our membership of various bodies such as the UN and the EC.

I am sick and tired of hearing the Government mouthing their support for the Third World countries. It is time for the Government to cease this mouthing and put their words into practice. It is not good enough at a time when 20 million people are now facing starvation in Africa, giving rise to fears that this famine will be much worse than the famine of 1984-85 when approximately one million people starved to death, that we are cutting back on our aid.

The Minister referred to the aid given to Eastern Europe. It is interesting to note that an additional £6 million was made available in this year's budget to help the emerging east European independent countries. I welcome the fact that a number of those who signed the Lomé Convention made it clear to the ACP countries that there would not be any diminution in the assistance given to them because of the assistance given to east European countries. I do not begrudge in any way the assistance given to these emerging nations but it should not be done at the expense of the bilateral and least developed countries in the world. Ireland's contribution is now the lowest of the OECD countries.

Many people say that Europe has its own poor. I want to put into perspective the differences between these countries and the ACP countries. It is estimated that the average income at present in countries in Eastern Europe such as Poland and Hungary is ten times greater than the income of people in the poorest African and Asian countries. People in Hungary and Poland had a per capita income of $2,240 and $1,930, respectively, in 1987. I want to compare that with the per capita incomes of people in Ethiopia and Tanzania, of $130 per annum and $180 per annum, respectively, in the same year. No matter how bad the problems are in Eastern Europe we cannot continue to say that their needs are greater. It is imperative that no Government should play one country off against another. While it is only right and proper that we give assistance to the east European countries, this should not be done at the expense of the ACP countries. We have fought since 1987 for an increase in the amount of aid given to developing countries but we did not succeed in convincing the Government to do this. Yet they could find a sum of £6 million for the eastern European countries in this year's budget. This makes me wonder if there is more in it from a PR point of view for the Government to make that sort of money available to countries where there are perhaps more business opportunities. I am sorry to sound cynical about this but that is the way it appears to the people who are looking at the figures.

I want to refer to the stark reality of life in some of the ACP countries where one in five children dies before their fifth birthday and over 40,000 children die every day. Before we pack up and go home to our constituencies this evening over 40,000 children will have died in Third World countries. Our aid programme for 1990 amounted to approximately 2½p per day per person. About two weeks ago I read in one of the Sunday papers that this country alone spends £1,600 million approximately a year on alcohol. We have to question where our priorities and commitments lie.

I want to say to the Government that we have had enough of their pious statements. We should achieve the UN target of 0.7 per cent so that we will be able to hold our head up with dignity at the international fora in which we participate, instead of hiding behind the door and saying that our problems are so bad we cannot even give a small percentage increase each year to our Third World partners.

I am sure the Minister's speech of welcome here today and his commitment to the least well off in the world will sound a trifle hollow to the many thousands of people who have recognised our responsibility and commitment and who have been so generous in the many fund-raising efforts run by non-governmental organisations. The total commitment of this ACP Convention is £7.7 billion. That is a great deal of money and should make major changes in the ACP countries. In preparing for this debate I thought I would have a look at what that amount of money means and how much of a commitment it is. I want to give figures of some of the costs, for example, of the most recent war. This is not a reflection on the war itself but a solitary reminder to us of exactly where our priorities lie when it comes to spending programmes in all the countries in the developed world.

The five Tornado jets lost in the war by 23 January 1991 cost £105 million, equivalent to the cost of enough grain to feed for one month the 20 million people who are now threatened with starvation. The cost of training one Tornado pilot is £3 million, enough money to provide 25,000 Ethiopian families with enough seeds and tools to recover from the drought and become self-sufficient in the production of their own food. The 33 Scud missiles which were fired in the war between 16 January and 23 January cost £3.3 million, the equivalent of the cost of 50 trucks plus spares, plus shipping costs to Africa. The 216 Tomahawk Cruise missiles fired by 19 January, three days after the war started, cost $280 million which is the total food aid requirement of Ethiopia for six months. The 23 Patriot missiles fired by 23 January at a cost of £500,000 per missile, a total of £11.5 million, would provide clothes, seeds and storage facilities for two million people in Mozambique for 12 months.

One has to look at those costs carefully and realise that a horrendous war is not the way to solve the world's problems. We must reassess our commitment in the western world to the less developed world and the 69 countries with whom we are drawing up another convention. It must be extremely difficult for a starving man or woman in Africa to understand that the red tape, bureaucracy and problems in our countries are so vast that we cannot reach out, help them and prevent them from dying of starvation. It must be difficult to understand when they read in the papers or hear on their radios that all the aid they would need is fired off in one bomb or in the loss of one aeroplane.

I would like to dwell on some of the new elements that I particularly welcome in this ACP Convention: first, the use of the environmental check list for all aid projects, and the fact that the first paragraph of the Convention is entitled "The Environment", with the growth of recognition of the need for environmental protection it is important that that chapter is included in the Convention. However, I find the language, particularly in Article 37, very loose. It states that environmental impact assessments will be carried out as appropriate in the case of large-scale projects and those posing a significant threat to the environment. It is a bit like the chicken and egg situation. How do you know if a large project will cause environmental damage without first carrying out an environmental impact assessment? I regret that the language is so loose there. I would prefer to have seen the term "all large-scale projects" or even a specified size for the projects, as is the case in the environmental impact assessment directive from the EC. In that way we could be sure that large-scale projects could not be undertaken which would be found later to have caused major environmental damage to the country in question and indeed to the rest of the world.

The inclusion in this chapter of a recognition that environmental protection requires an approach embracing both the social and cultural dimensions is very insignificant. I am reminded again of the project in the Philippines a number of years ago where, on the one hand, the proposal to dam a valley, known as the Chico dam project, had a lot of merit for the people living in the towns and cities of the area because it was going to bring them water, but on the other hand it was going to destroy the culture, lives and livelihood of a remaining, almost obsolete, tribe of Indians. Thankfully in that instance the environmentalists, who at that stage were considered crack-pots and cranks, won out and that project did not go ahead. That highlighted the need to link environmental protection with social and cultural dimensions and the livelihoods of people. The inclusion of environmental check lists will help to estimate the viability of proposed projects. As I have said, I hope we will see fewer mistakes of the kind we have seen in some of the projects undertaken in ACP countries.

I welcome too the fact that all new aid will be in the form of grants, apart from the European Investment Bank which will continue to give all-risk capital to the ACP countries. The inclusion in this Convention of the recognition of co-operation in the structural readjustment programmes is very important. Many of us in this House have spoken previously of the "hole in the bucket" syndrome that exists where, on the one hand, vast resources are being poured into countries while, on the other hand, they are pouring out through the hole in the bucket due to indebtedness. One welcomes the fact that there will now be a joint assessment on structural reform between the EC and the ACP countries and the IMF and the World Bank. However, I urge the Minister to use whatever power he has and whatever forum is available to him to ensure there is expertise at EC level to match the IMF and the World Bank on their own ground when discussing these structural programmes.

I want to comment briefly on two other areas of the Convention, as the Minister has already highlighted, the chapter for women and women in development. Article 153, particularly paragraph (c), is to be welcomed. It states that there should be easier access by women to training and education which shall be regarded as a crucial element to be incorporated from the outset in development programming. I hope that is taken on board and that women will have an input in the initial stages of development programmes. I welcome Article 154 on health and nutrition in which there is reference to the integrated approach needed to provide basic health care. Too often we see health centres being provided but with no preventative side. This chapter is to be warmly welcomed.

I do not believe it is the fault of the Lomé Convention that some of the ACP countries are less well placed than they were ten years ago. Matters would probably have been a great deal worse if the Lomé Convention had not been in place, particularly given the severity of the slump in the price of raw materials, the burden of debt of £90 billion and the effects of the structural adjustment programmes.

Finally, I want to pay tribute to a man whom I met a number of times over the years, Mr. Edwin Carrington, who is now retired as General Secretary of the ACP Group. I quote what he said during the signing of the Convention:

I think Lomé, without boasting, is now clearly the premier co-operation agreement between North and South on our planet today, and the ACP Group is a respected institution which takes part in, and makes a welcome contribution to, all the major regional and international conferences.

I pay tribute to Edwin Carrington for the work he has done. I sincerely hope this Government and all Governments in the future will monitor this Convention with care and diligence and ensure that it improves the lot of the people in the ACP countries.

Mr. M. Higgins

When these issues are discussed in this House I note a certain tendency — it is with no disrespect to the Minister of State that I say this — for development issues to reach the Dáil Order Paper usually towards the end of the week; they are not crowded occasions in terms of speakers or of a large audience. I have also noted, over the many years in which I have been speaking on this area, a certain kind of assumption that development issues and aid issues of countries and continents, such as Africa, are regarded as matters for the heart whereas real economics are regarded as a matter for the head. I simply do not want, yet again, to give a list of all the children who are dying — even though it is true — of all the villages without clean water, all the families without medicine and of the destruction of the native environments. One could do that year after year but the events of the last few weeks were very revelatory.

It was when the glorification of military expertise was being extolled on our television screens that the people who believed in development should have spoken out. You cannot have it both ways, you cannot be for the use of advanced technological armaments, weapons of destruction produced at profit by countries we refuse to criticise and then, a fortnight afterwards, say it is a pity that these resources were not used on medicine.

I find it very difficult to accept people in this House, whose sincerity I do not challenge on the development issues, being reluctant to speak about the disgrace of what has taken place in the last few weeks. At the same time as weapons costing more than $1 million a time were being aimed at villages with no water — and fired from villages with no water — maybe somewhere between 20 million and 30 million people in Africa were dying of starvation. It is necessary for us to try to get our act together. In all the coalition arrangements in which the Labour Party were involved, I had very little influence on the writing of a common programme. However, I did have an influence in relation to one element, the inclusion of the commitment to achieve our United Nations target on overseas development aid. It is very significant that in the negotiations between the Progressive Democrats and the Fianna Fáil Party, it was not a condition of the Progressive Democrats participation in Government that overseas development aid targets at United Nations level would be achieved in a phased way or within a period of time.

I can also say — before the definitive biography appears — that at the time of the Coalition Government in which the Labour Party participated and which was led by the leader of another party, we did not have it easy and there was an argument about what was meant by the achievement of the target and whether one talked about progress from one year to another.

I agree with Deputy Owen that the abandonment of any attempt towards a coherent development policy at present is an absolute scandal. Let us be clear about what is happening here today; we are debating Lomé IV which was signed in Brussels on 16 July 1990, which had been signed in Lomé on 15 December 1989. We do not have a foreign affairs committee in this House; there was once a joint committee on development co-operation on which a number of Members of this House served but it no longer exists. There is no White Paper on the principles of development policy.

I want straight answers to a few straight questions. Where is the European Community's development policy? That is a specific question because I want a specific answer. Where does it differ from the World Bank strategy for the countries affected by the agreement? Where does it differ from the International Monetary Fund? I visited countries which are recipient countries in terms of the treaty. I visited one when, at that very moment, it was being suggested that the country's economy should — and could — be restructured in terms of the market economy principles of the World Bank and the IMF. Within the level of staff for a project delivery under the terms of the treaty, how do the numbers available to the Community compare with the IMF and the World Bank? It is true that the ideological horror of the World Bank and the IMF, which has told the poorest of the world that they must pull themselves up by the principles of the market economy, is being slavishly followed by the European Community.

I listened with care to the speech and I welcome the developments in Lomé IV and the other agreements since the signing of the first Lomé agreement. On each occasion in this House when we have discussed the gap in trade between the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries and the Community the gap has widened; the gap in income between per capita income has widened. Indeed, the Community has quite an ambivalent view in relation to Lomé. Maybe the Minister of State, for example, will tell me whether the Irish view on Lomé veers towards the British view, which was that you should have more trade, or towards the Italian view which said that you should have more aid. These were not lofty principles of alternative development policy. Very simply, Italy saw a threat for its agricultural producers in regard to agricultural concessions and, therefore, it wanted straight aid. Britain, on the other hand, with its particular development focus at present, wanted to implement market principles. What is the Irish view? I repeat, our failure to put ourselves on course to at least go back to the level at which we were towards achieving the United Nations target in overseas development aid is a scandal. I repeat — because I am always getting lectures about being in a minority in this House — no party in this House has a mandate from the public to cut overseas development aid.

Mrs. Owen

That is right.

Mr. M. Higgins

All the surveys say that, whatever the cost, people want Ireland to be on course towards achieving the target. Why then is this unique mandate from the people being broken again and again? There is a new tendency, from the people who write speeches in this country, to substitute proportionate figures with absolute figures. Mrs. Thatcher had the same idea; when the old harridan of modern historical Britain was wandering around Britain, when people were in TB wards mixed with general patients and so on, she would smile through her teeth and say: "last year we spent so many millions on health". This is what we are getting now every week here. We never get a real statement such as, "Proportionately what happened one year was such, the change in real terms was such". The absolute figure is good enough for the plebs and their representatives. Throw it at them, because after all they are unique in Ireland; they are the only country in the EC who do not deserve a foreign affairs committee, a development aid committee or a development aid policy.

There are many things of a superficial and technical nature that are to be welcomed in Lomé IV. For example, the word "survival" occurs in the speech. What survival are we talking about? There is a very interesting coded word in the Minister's speech in a reference to "sectoral assistance". Sectoral assistance means that the elite in the receiving country that controls the export economy will be assisted by the agreement and there is not one whit of progress towards people-to-people aid. I am sympathetic to any Minister for Foreign Affairs in the EC, including the Irish Minister, regarding a dilemma that is genuinely there since the day Lomé I was signed. The dilemma is about sovereignty. In the first and early days a number of projects were built that were gradiose and not necessarily to the benefit of their receiving peoples. They were prestige projects which served the image of government. The dilemma was: how could you respect the sovereignty of the recipient country and at the same time appear to give indications as to how funds should be spent to better effect? The evolution of that problem through Lomé I on through Lomé IV has not really got any better but the EC has virtually run off the field altogether. It has simply tailored and adjusted its economic programmes towards the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund orthodoxy.

Lomé IV was signed — indeed the discussions took place — in an incredible atmosphere. Those of us who are elected must take the resources that are promised under Lomé IV and place them in comparison with the scale of the need of the countries involved. The debt burden was about £90 billion sterling. How will this agreement impact? I am not saying the Treaty is wrong in that regard. I am not saying it could solve all these problems, but I repeat that those who were for the war a fortnight ago and for development this week are being inconsistent, that those who are for Lomé today and who are at the same time in favour of international market economics creating the debt burden that hangs like an albatross around the least developing countries and the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries are equally being inconsistent. It is an unpopular view in this Parliament and in many parliaments that the people who are struggling against famine and disease should be allowed to pick their own path to development and to pick different models of development. What is being visited on them is an orthodoxy. That orthodoxy means that the internal structure of many of the countries is not affected by the aid that is involved.

I have another question for the Minister when he comes to reply. How do the developments suggested in Lomé IV square with the developments that are going to arise from the GATT? For example, what is our attitude towards Lomé IV specifically? I have asked the question about the Italian and British position, but how do we square our bleeding hearts in relation to Lomé discussions with the position we are taking up on the GATT? Is it not a kind of dishonour of language to say that I am for this this week but I am going to weep with the rest of the world the following week and I am going to be concerned about something else the next week? You cannot have it every way.

There are many things we could do. We could have our foreign affairs committee, a development co-operation committee and a development policy. We have had enough of advisory councils. They are very valuable but they come and go and keep on saying the same thing. We have had a plethora of agencies, marvellous people all drawing our attention to the issue, but the truth is that our Department of Finance would not let us take anything like a progressive view.

To use a word that is becoming very unfashionable, how does the specific post-colonial history of Ireland feature in this development policy? I notice a profile of thinking emerging in the British case that arrived in St. Stephen's Green about a month later. What is Irish about I veagh House's development policy apart from the fact that it is the least staffed, the Cinderella Department within the Department of Foreign Affairs, regarded as something like a punishment station. This is no reflection on particular individuals, but I repeat my statement. It exercises no muscle down there. I am sure it does people's vanity good to be able to say, "we presided over the signing; we dragged everything together". I will be more concrete than that. Take the statements of a distinguished French Foreign Minister at one stage, and later a Commissioner, Claude Cheysson, and compare them with anything said by anybody in Ireland on development and you will get an idea about how far we are from any consistency. Where does our response to Lomé IV fit in with or depart from the Scandinavian views? Are the Scandinavians mad? Is some madness induced by their commitment to social democracy and to the solidarities that led them to continue with the UN targets? Are the little Irelanders who wanted to follow the little Britain of the market economy so intellectually superior that we follow along the line of telling poor countries they must pull themselves up?

Of course, what Deputy Owen said is true, and she and I have seen this on the ground. Yes, 40,000 children die each day. And — a very interesting thing — the equivalent 48 hours of the recent war could have provided clean water for practically most of the countries involved in sub-Saharan Africa. Yes, we could achieve the UNICEF targets in relation to children's welfare. Where we are making a mistake and living a lie is by saying the development aid issues are soft issues but that real men talk about economies within a market economic model. That is how that comes across again and again.

I pay tribute to all those who have raised Irish consciousness again and again, year after year, but no progress will be made on development aid until it enjoys a sufficient status and until, in a budget planning process, some Minister says he wants to implement the mandate the Irish people have given to put us on course to achieve the UN target in relation to ODA.

Proinsias De Rossa

This debate is about ratification of Lomé IV. Lomé IV was signed by the ACP negotiators in December 1989, ratified by the European Parliament in July of last year and yet here we are, in March 1991, six or seven days after the Lomé III Convention expired, seeking to ratify Lomé IV. When one considers that because of the delay by various European and ACP countries in ratifying Lomé IV it has been necessary for the European Council to take steps to extend arrangements for the continuation of assistance to ACP countries at least until June, we can see how slow European countries in particular have been in taking seriously their commitments under ACP.

It must be said that for quite a long time there have been doubts cast on the commitment of the European Community and the member states to the question of development in the underdeveloped world, or the Third World, particularly since the concentration in the last year to 18 months on eastern Europe. Questions have been asked by the developing countries. They want to know if this means they will be left in the lurch. It must be said that the delay in ratifying this agreement would seem to indicate that there is very little urgency with regard to development in the region. We seem to be able to deal far more quickly with issues arising in relation to Eastern Europe than in relation to what is known nowadays as the South.

Given that there have already been three ACP-European Community Conventions implemented, and given the continuing appalling poverty among the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries which are signatories to the Convention, one might expect a somewhat critical analysis of where the Lomé process is leading, and what the programme which the Dáil is being asked to approve is likely to achieve in reality. Instead, the Government in chorus with other European Community Governments are attempting to sell Lomé IV as a major breakthrough for assistance policies to developing countries. There is an old Italian proverb that says, when too many roosters start crowing, the sun never gets a chance to come up. There is a danger that in such a chorus of support for Lomé IV we may fail to examine the full value of the agreement or to assess whether it is of any real benefit to the developing world.

We have the strange situation where, despite the Lomé framework the flow of funds from south to north has exceeded the flow from north to south over the past ten years. Aid, either deliberately or as a result of defective policies, ends up being used to increase dependence on the economies, trading priorities and technology of the developed world. It is not simply a case of some of the major economic powers exploiting the poorer states. Ireland would appear to be a clear net beneficiary from its contracts with these countries. Figures available in Irish semi-State companies for 1987, for instance, are recorded as having earned consultancy and technical assistance contracts worth a total of £86 million from the Third World. Ireland's bilateral aid allocation was a mere £9 million in the same year — a tidy profit of £75 million. While it is not possible to quantify the gains and losses for the developing world from Lomé, so specifically there is increasing evidence that the balance of loss is on the side of the developing countries.

Yesterday, The Irish Times ran the chilling headline which read “Twenty million may starve as food aid falls short”. In countries as far apart as Mozambique, Sudan, Rwanda, Chad, Uganda and Liberia, development policies are failing to the extent that millions of people are starving. Most damning of all perhaps is the fact that during the eighties, Ethiopia was the scene of one of the most horrific and much publicised famines in history and it is now reported that up to six million people face famine and starvation. These are but the extreme examples. Throughout the developing world Governments and people are fighting an increasingly uphill battle for survival. In Africa the problem of famine; in Latin America and the Caribbean the problem is a crippling debt which prevents those countries ever shaking off the burden of chronic underdevelopment.

If this is the overall picture, it is hardly unfair to wonder how effective north-south co-operation is in achieving its stated aims. It is surely time to subject the aims and instruments of this co-operation, particularly Lomé and its resources to critical analyses. Bigger, better and faster was one of the slogans of the Community on economic contacts with ACP States at the start of Lomé III. The facts would seem to indicate that this strategy has served to overwhelm rather than assist the developing world. There is every danger that Lomé IV will result in not just a continuation, but an escalation of the difficulties facing the African, Caribbean and Pacific States.

The 1992 process of the Single Market, which is geared to create a more efficient and competitive economic and political unit within the European Community, would present an even stronger bloc confronting the chronically disorganised economies of the south. While the Ministers say that it is not designed to do this, and while it may not be intentionally designed to do this, it will certainly have a deleterious effect on the efforts of the developing world to gain access to that market.

The developments in Eastern Europe and the inevitable flow of investment into these countries from the European Community and other sources, jeopardise and will undoubtedly reduce the funds available to the poorer states. Unless there is a fundamental review of funding, structures and policies the Lomé process will continue to fail in its stated aim of assisting real development in recipient states and, in the new world order emerging on the political and economic front, Lomé will achieve less and less.

This new world order deserves closer attention. The past few months have displayed the ability of the developed countries to deploy unimaginable levels of resources and funding in response to the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait. Well over 500,000 troops — about the number of voters it takes to elect the Members on the Government benches — were deployed in the Middle East with associated transport and life support systems in a most hostile environment at very short notice and without any serious reference to the costs involved. Yet, it proves impossible to provide adequate funding to assist developing countries to allow them develop their infrastructure to the extent necessary for economic development to take off. As yet, uncounted amounts of financial resources, estimated at £2,000 million to £3,000 million in the case of Britain alone, were devoted to military expenditure in the war against Iraq and on arming other Middle East States in the allied coalition. Yet millions of people in dozens of ACP countries continue to draw water from unclean wells because there is a lack of money to develop such basic infrastructural services as clean water supply.

On the financial package offered by Lomé IV, I am not satisfied that it represents a sufficient financial commitment. The figures show an overall allocation of 10,800 million ECU in EDF funding and this represents an increase of about a quarter on the Lomé III allocation of 1985. Given the effects of inflation and the fact that particularly improverished countries such as Haiti and countries with special development needs, such as Namibia, have now joined the Lomé framework, the allocation does not really represent any advance at all.

Considering the failure of Lomé III to achieve any tangible progress in tackling under development the cash allocation of Lomé IV will be inadequate to reverse the slide into greater poverty and under development in the ACP states. Interestingly, the European Investment Bank loan provision of 1,200 million ECUs represents a less than 10 per cent increase on Lomé III. In real terms therefore less cash will be available for such loans. It may well be that we are finally seeing a recognition that loans are an unsatisfactory means of dealing with Third World development. It may instead be a fear that more and more ACP states are a bad bet when it comes to issuing loans. The facts are that in Africa statistics show that between 1980 and 1987 GDP fell by an average of 2.6 per cent each year, investment fell and the rate of return on investment fell even more from a rate of 30.7 per cent in the period 1961-73 to a mere 2.5 per cent in 1980-87.

Western institutions offered vast sums in loans to sub-Saharan countries in Africa in the late seventies and by the mid-eighties, pressure for repayment had reached alarming levels and these countries have suffered the crippling effects of debt and interest repayments ever since. The new Lomé Convention does not take adequate account of this unparalleled crisis of debt. A declaration annexed to the convention reiterates the Community's readiness to hold exchanges of views with ACP states on the debt issue in the context of overall international discussions on debt but this sounds little more than talks about talks. If this is to be the attitude of the developed world to the virtual bankruptcy of dozens of states in the Third World then we are heading for an unparalleled economic crisis which will affect much more than just the poorest states. The entire world trading and financial system will be affected and the crisis will not be confined to the Third World.

The pressure on ACP states with the advent of 1992 will become even greater. While the enlarged Internal Market will in theory open new doors to Third World countries, it is also clear that a high level of technological and infrastructural development will be required of any country which hopes to benefit from the 1992 process. The ACP states are clearly the most disadvantaged in this regard.

The provisions of Lomé IV provide an inadequate strategy for dealing with the economic crisis in the ACP states. A fundamental review of the entire Lomé framework should have been carried out in view of the failure evident in Lomé III. Indeed, it is reprehensible that the European Community in its negotiations did not allow for such a review. For the ACP countries therefore it became a case of quarter of a loaf or no bread at all. Their lack of enthusiasm for the new agreement was evident in the fact that six months after the initial signing of the agreement just one ACP state had ratified it. As I understand it, something like ten are still required to sign and ratify it in order to reach the two-thirds required before it can become effective.

In relation to Ireland, it goes without saying that there is urgent need to reestablish the joint committee on co-operation and aid. It is quite extraordinary that not only do we not have a foreign affairs committee, although one has now been promised, we do not have any forum, other than the odd debate in this House, on development policy for aid to the Third World and on the way it should be developed. What contribution is being made by Ireland in the various fora in which we are represented on the question of aid? What attitudes are being promoted and from where do they come? Certainly, Members on the Opposition benches have very few opportunities to convey their views and help develop a coherent response to the needs of the Third World. I urge the Government to take on board the idea of reconstituting the committee which we had here some years ago.

It is also unfortunate, although I have tried on at least two occasions to get all-party agreement, certainly among the Opposition parties, on an approach to the Government in relation to an agreed programme on increasing ODA, that I received little response from the parties in this House to this idea. By and large, there is agreement that ODA needs to be increased and that we need to get back on track to reach the United Nations' target. It seems that it would make sense for all the parties in this House to get together to discuss how this can be done in a rational way over a period of years. I, again, urge all parties — I am not singling out any party, either in Opposition or in Government — to sit down, privately if necessary, to thrash out how this country can regain some credibility, in relation to our contributions on ODA.

There is no question of either I, or any other Deputy, opposing the ratification of this Convention as that would not make sense. It has been negotiated over a long period of time between a large number of countries. It is what it is but I do not think we should leave it at that. As I said, we should have a committee to monitor its implementation and the way it is developing. It will apply for a ten year period and it may well need to be changed and adjusted during that period. This House should address the issues that arise.

I agree with Deputy Higgins who said that Deputies who supported the Gulf War are not being consistent in now crying about the waste of resources in the bombing of people and armies in the Gulf. This does not make sense. The questions of ODA and what kind of security order will exist in the future were entwined in the attitude to the Gulf and the war which was precipitated there. There are differing views as to whether the war started in January or August — indeed one could go back through the history of the Middle East to decide when it started and who started it.

Mr. Connor

It started in August.

Proinsias De Rossa

The reality is that we have had an unnecessary and immoral war given the nature of the problems that the vast majority of the population of this earth face in merely existing. It was a crime that a country such as Egypt, which has so few resources of its own, was engaged in the war and was effectively bought off to support the war on the basis of having its debts wiped out by the United States. That is a country which has one of the most appalling levels of poverty on the face of this earth.

Mr. J. O'Keeffe

Nowhere is the hypocrisy of the Taoiseach, Deputy Charles Haughey, more obvious than in this attitude to overseas aid and development co-operation. I speak from personal experience. In 1981, I was appointed as the first Minister of State with responsibility for overseas aid and development co-operation. I recall that following the change of Government in 1982 that appointment was not continued and no Minister of State with that responsibility was appointed by the then Taoiseach, Deputy Charles Haughey. I raised the issue with him in the House and he dismissed the suggestion that the precedent established in 1981 should be continued. He suggested that such an appointment was superfluous and supernumerary. Those were his words in 1982.

Following a further change of Government I was again given special responsibility for overseas aid and development co-operation. I recall being in Ethiopia at the height of the famine in 1985. I was there on behalf of the Irish Government, but principally on behalf to the European Community, because at that time we held the Presidency. I had been pressing for substantial aid from the Community for the starving in Africa. Arising from the strong proposal I made, I was asked to go there and report personally on the position.

When I was visiting one of the awful death camps in Ethiopia, where I saw the full horror of the famine and people literally dying before my eyes, I received a news report from Ireland as to what the then leader of the Opposition, Deputy Haughey, felt should be done. His view was that Ireland should appoint a Cabinet Minister with responsibility for overseas aid and development co-operation. I will not tell the House what my physical reaction was when I heard this proposal but it highlighted the feelings I had about our current Taoiseach. Of all the hypocritical proposals I had heard, that beat them all. A man who, when he was Taoiseach, would not even appoint a Minister of State was responding to publicity about famine in Africa with this proposal.

I was not at all surprised in 1987 that the ODA budget, built up year by year during the term of our Government from 1981, was savagely attacked. Between 1981 and 1986 we had been able to increase our contribution from 0.18 per cent to over 0.25 per cent of GDP. That was not done without a lot of commitment and effort and I was delighted to have been involved and associated with it. I was not surprised in 1987 that the poorest of the poor in the world were the first to be targeted by the Taoiseach, Deputy Haughey, when it came to retrenchment and cutback. Over a couple of years all the progress that had been made in the early part of the decade had been taken apart. The programme had been cut and slashed and by 1990 the percentage of GDP allocated to aid was even lower than in 1981 at 0.16 per cent. That is an appalling indictment of this Government.

I exempt entirely from my remarks the Minister of State present who has been dealing with development co-operation, a decent man who has been trying to do the very best he can in the circumstances. I focus my comments entirely on the hypocrisy of the Taoiseach in view of that kind of record over the decade. He has shown that he has not the slightest interest in or commitment to the poor. If they have not a vote, they are of no concern to him. When the tear is in the eye he will respond by making the grand statement, but when it comes to the bottom line of producing the wherewithal to develop the Irish aid programme, he is not at the races. It is a frightful indictment of his record and it deserves to be highlighted.

I note that in 1991 there is an improvement in the figures, but I fear we must look behind those figures. The improvement, while on the face of it substantial, does not do much to indicate a renewed commitment on the part of the Government. The 1991 Estimate show an increase of £9 million, which sounds good. There is £5 million on the multi-lateral side but virtually all of it is due to a mandatory requirement to provide extra funds for Ireland's contribution to the European Community. The other £4 million is on the bilateral side and it is mainly to supply food aid for countries affected by the Gulf crisis. This will largely consist of the supply of skimmed milk powder to Egypt, I am glad to see our support for Egypt, one of the poorest of the frontline states in terms of per capita income involved in the Gulf War. Let us not pretend that it is a reinforcement of our commitment to the poorest of the poor in Africa and Asia.

While talking about Egypt and the Gulf I feel it necessary to respond to comments made by my colleagues, Deputies Higgins and De Rossa. I find their comments to be absolutely ludicrous. The approach I adopt to the UN is entirely consistent. I supported fully the resolutions of the UN Security Council relating to the Gulf. I stood four square behind the UN in that regard and I would criticise anybody who was prepared to damage the credibility of the United Nations.

I hold similar views in relation to development co-operation. This country should move towards the UN-recommended figure of 0.7 per cent of GDP and I make no secret of the fact that I was the person who pushed that commitment as the first Minister of State with responsibility in this area. I was delighted to be involved with the Government who in the early part of the last decade increased our contribution substantially from 0.18 per cent to 0.25 per cent. Both approaches were absolutely consistent and indicated my support for the UN. Any inconsistency is on the part of other parties. Let them explain their inconsistencies. I support the UN on both fronts and will continue to do so.

I agree with Deputy Higgins regarding public support for overseas development and co-operation. There is no mandate for any Government to cut development co-operation moneys. The most recent survey in this area was carried out in 1989 by the Advisory Council on Development Co-operation and it covered all aspects of Ireland's development co-operation policy. The survey found that 89 per cent of Irish people have a positive overall attitude towards helping the Third World — 58 per cent are very much in favour and 31 per cent are in favour of it on the whole. There is no mandate for cutting support for the poorest of the poor. It is clear that there is very strong support for Ireland, as the 25th richest nation in the world, playing its part in the development co-operation effort.

This leads on to what we should do in the future. It was I who proposed in 1981 that there should be an Oireachtas joint committee on development co-operation. At this stage I am not entirely certain if that is the best way forward. From the point of view of giving Members of this House an opportunity of expressing their views it is probably best that we go ahead with the foreign affairs committee and that we form a sub-committee to deal specifically with development co-operation. I do not think it is practically really to have two such committees. One committee, with a sub-committee dealing with development co-operation is the obvious way forward and will give Members of the House who have an interest in it the possibility of expressing their views. The second way forward, was touched on by Deputy De Rossa and I think there should be an effort to try to take overseas aid and development co-operation out of the area of party politics. Over the years I have seen vague commitments from different parties in Government to do what they can as resources permit. Our own party in Opposition between 1977 and 1981 made a commitment which we adhered to. But I would like to see a commitment by all parties to a gradual, sustained increase in development co-operation and overseas aid and that the whole issue would be taken out of party politics.

I would suggest an annual increase in overseas development aid of 0.05 per cent of GDP. This is not unreasonable and in fact we achieved it between 1981 and 1987 and I think it is possible to do so again. Our only assurance of making progress towards achieving the UN target is on an all-party basis. When the foreign affairs committee has been established — and I hope with a sub-committee dealing with developing co-operation — I hope discussions will open between the parties on a proposal of that kind. That holds out the best chance of making sustained progress on the UN target over the years ahead.

I believe Lomé IV is an improvement on Lomé III. I was involved in the negotiations on Lomé III and I attended the signing in Togo. In passing I might say my recollection is of a dingy, nasty country whose human rights provisions which we discussed during our negotiations could be highlighted. My comments are not in the context of its poverty. I have been in the death camps in Ethiopia and in refugee camps in Kampuchea, bangladesh and Calcutta, and I would not refer to poverty in that fashion, but I am concerned about the type of Government in some of these countries. It appears to me that there are major restrictions on the freedom of their people and we cannot overlook this in the negotiation of international agreements of this kind. I know it is a sensitive issue but the European Community will have to continue to raise it in the ACP-EC context.

The framework established by Lomé IV seems to be an improvement on Lomé III. The fact that it spans a longer period of time makes sense. The money available has been improved and there are a number of technical provisions which will give rise to improvements. Therefore, I have no difficulty in giving approval to the Convention. Realistically it would be quite ludicrous if Dáil Éireann did not approve the Convention — a Convention freely negotiated between the representatives of the European Community and representatives of the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. I wish Lomé IV every success in the years ahead. I hope the remarks I have had to make on our national performance will be borne in mind and we will see a change of heart on the part of the present Government. I hope the efforts of the Minister of State, Deputy Calleary, will bear fruit for whatever term is left to this Government. I encourage him to continue his efforts within the Government side and we will support that from the Opposition benches by continuing to highlight the deficiences and the need for a change of heart on the part of the present Cabinet.

Mr. Connor

This is one of my major political interests and I am always delighted to have an opportunity to contribute to debates on the Third World.

This is a quite day in the Dáil. It is noteworthy, but not in a desirable way, that there are so few Deputies in the House. It is particularly regrettable that the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs is the sole bearer of the banner for his own party and there is not another single Fianna Fáil front bencher or back bencher to contribute to this debate. It is particularly noteworthy also that, on the benches slightly to my right, there is not one single personage from the Progressive Democrats, whose publications, particularly when the party had just been formed, were full of laudable sentiments. One would hope that those sentiments are still part of the policy of that party, but it is a great pity that none of these people is here today.

I, like all my colleagues who have spoken, support Lomé III. While it might not be an adequate response in terms of what we need to do for the poor of the Third World, nevertheless the principle of Lomé established in 1975 is an excellent one. In each of the four conventions we have now gone through, there has been an improvement in terms of trade and aid and in terms of including relevant or important matters that were not included in previous conventions. This time around one is particularly satisfied that there is a linkage to human rights abuses and respect for human rights among the participants in this convention.

Much has been said today in relation to faults to be found on the EC side, the inadequacies of what we are doing and what we are offering to do. We should not lose sight of the fact, however — and this is going back to the need to include human rights in the Convention — there is so much the recipient countries themselves could improve about the way they conduct their own affairs. We should not be ashamed, indeed we should at all times say to certain countries who are recipients — and naturally we give anything they get in the full spirit of generosity and knowing their need — that there is something wrong if they devote 35 per cent or 40 per cent of GDP to their military and maybe 1 per cent of their GDP towards primary education. It is most important that those points be made in our negotiations and that when we are critical of ourselves, we might be mindful of these points as well.

A proposal on development aid placed by the EC Commissioner to convert all outstanding repayments of loan aid to ACP countries to grants was passed after a special meeting last December through the full council but, as far as I know, we have not had a definitive decision to date. Deputy Owen mentioned that the total debt of the APC countries is of the order of £100 million. The proposal to convert would only represent 1 per cent of the total debt burden of those countries. This proposal is fully consistent with the philosophy in Lomé IV which sets out that in future aid should come under the heading of grants rather than loans.

In his breakdown of Irish overseas assistance this year Deputy O'Keeffe said that while the overall figure may look good it is interesting to look at the various components of it. I have to criticise the fact that £7 million of it has been specifically targeted towards countries that are particular victims of the Gulf crisis, i.e. Egypt. That is all very well and we welcome that. However, in its underlying principle, this does not show that we have a cohrent overseas development policy. That sort of sum, because it is given on a once-off basis this year, should be shown as a separate item. It is misleading to show it as a percentage increase of our ODA which it absolutley is not.

The allocation of funds to front line states in the Gulf conflict raises the fear that Irish aid will not be disbursed in accordance with the recipient needs, which has always been the principle that has governed it in the past. If this is what we are to have in future it would represent a major policy change.

Much has been said in the House about the cutback in the levels of our aid since 1987 which never should have taken place. This is such a small amount of our total annual expenditure targeted on the poorest in the world, and we have our own historical experience of living at the kind of levels of privation which this aid reaches out to. Since 1987 there has been a increase in total current expenditure of 3.9 per cent, despite all the cutbacks. We find ourselves at the end of the four years with a total current expenditure by the Exchequer which has increased by 3.9 per cent. On health care, which is very controversial, there has been an increase in expenditure of 5.3 per cent.

Mr. Calleary

It is a pity the Deputy did not recognise that last week.

Mr. Connor

It is not enough. In social welfare there has been an increase of 4.3 per cent. On education there has been an increase of 13.7 per cent — that is laudable. However, on ODA there has been a decrease of 23.4 per cent, and that is absolutely shameful.

It is sometimes argued that the national generosity of the Irish people in the way they contribute to overseas aid, to the non-governmental organisations such as Trócaire, GOAL and so on, in many ways almost cancels out the lack of Government generosity. Non-governmental organisations from this country alone last year contributed £23 million to projects in Third World countries. That was collected, in coins very often, small amounts, from the people all around the country, and we find the amount of official assistance at around £36 million. As a previous speaker said, there is this clear tangible expression of support in terms of people willing to put their hands in their pockets and to give their own money. Yet we find this penuriousness on the part of the Government.

We welcome Ireland's contribution towards the European Bank for Construction and Development. We all recognise that Eastern Europe has to reorientate its economies. Recently we debated a Bill governing our participation in this facility; that will commit the Irish Government to spending something like £23 million towards Eastern European construction. That is laudable. However, in terms of level of need, the need in the Third World is so much greater. Yet we were very generous, we were very quick to respond because this was a particular EC initiative. We were very quick to play our part, but the gap in our alacrity in playing our part in that direction and our lack of action in terms of outreach to the Third World is amazing. There are people who do not like to go into some of the horrific details of what is taking place in poor countries at present. I would like to put on record some of the projects that will be helped by the money we spend. I will give details of the problems that will be exacerbated if we do not spend money.

At present there are 40,000 child deaths each day in the 67 countries about which we are talking. There are 115 million children in these countries living in constant illness and in a state of retarded growth. In 1990 alone over 20 million children in the world died from whooping cough and measles. There are 100 million children in these countries between the ages of six and 11 years who never go to school and 60 per cent of them are girls. They all form part of 1 billion people — a quarter of all mankind — who are illiterate. By our meanness we are contributing to these figures becoming worse because as the economic status of some of the poorer countries get worse the areas that suffer first are primary education and primary sanitation.

About 11 per cent of all ODA from the wealthy countries goes towards the provision of education. If one looks at a profile of how that money is spent one will find that it reaches a relatively low percentage of children in the countries that most need aid towards education. A very high percentage of the 11 per cent goes towards educating children at second-level or, perhaps, third-level, while countless millions of children have no access to even primary education which underlines the point about illiteracy. We should talk to our recipient countries and ask that there be a reorientation of the way the money is spent. We should insist that there be a reorientation of how the money is targeted and ask who are the recipients. Ours is a penurious response to the overall problem but it is absolutely despairing to find that so much of the money is badly orientated or is not properly targeted to the people most in need.

One finds that 5 per cent of all ODA which goes to the poorest countries is spent on health. There are hundreds of thousands of children, perhaps millions of children, suffering from whooping cough and measles — easily curable diseases by simple immunisation — whom this expenditure at least affects. Frequently, expenditure on health helps people in the middle and the better-off classes of these countries because it is spent on prestigious hospitals, clinics and so on. That problem is not talked about and it should be part of the negotiations on the importance of targeting.

Only 1.5 per cent of all ODA nowadays goes towards water and sanitation. From figures I have seen recently I note that 60 per cent of urban dwellers in the poorest countries have access to safe water and barely 40 per cent of rural dwellers have access to safe water. Safe water is the very basis of primary health and sanitation. Reasonable health care and sanitation will protect people from so many easily curable diseases but because of the environment in which they live, particularly children, they die as a result of those diseases.

Every year about 500,000 in the Third World die of diseases related to pregnancy, most of which are easily curable diseases. A sad corollary is that these 500,000 mothers leave approximately one million orphans each year. Another sad aspect is that many of these deaths arise from improperly supervised abortions. A very high proportion of these mothers are 18 years of age and under.

Health expenditure in 95 of the underdeveloped countries is only about 1.1 per cent of GNP. In many of these countries military expenditure would be of the order of 320 per cent of GNP. Expenditure on education in these countries amounts to about 2.5 per cent of GNP and 4.5 per cent of the gross national product of these countries goes to servicing debts owed to countries in the developed world. I use that figure to reinforce my earlier point that the Government should support Mr. Martin's proposal that previous debts owed by ACP countries to EC under Lomé be converted from debt owing to us to grants.

Another aspect of life in Africa is the horror of AIDS. It is now estimated that three million women are HIV positive in Africa and in Asia but even more horrific is the concentration of 2.5 million of these women in sub-Saharan Africa. It is estimated that 30 per cent of the children born of these women will be infected with AIDS and that they will die within six years of their birth.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I wish to advise Deputy Connor that he has one and a half minutes or thereabouts left.

Mr. Connor

I merely make that point to illustate again the scale of the problem we are dealing with and to remind us of the inadequacy of the response of this country to the problem. The point cannot be made often enough that in terms of ODA as a proportion of our GDP — and that is the only way one can measure it — Ireland's contribution this year, if we take out the £7 million which goes to the front line states affected by the Gulf crisis, will be 0.15 per cent. Last year it was 0.16 per cent of GDP. There were years during the mid-eighties — I am glad this was at the time of the previous Coalition Government of which I was a supporting Member in the other House — when we went as high as 0.25 per cent of GDP, and this was at a time of very severe economic crisis. Since then we have almost halved that figure. One has to go back as far as 1978 when it was 0.13 per cent of GDP or 1979 when it was 0.18 per cent of GDP to find a comparable figure in terms of what we contributed in ODA to the Third World.

I sincerely hope the Minister will take on board some of the views expressed by Members on this side of the House. Very often we judge our civilisation by our economic and technological achievements but we should remember that ultimately we will be judged by what we have done for the other people with whom we share this planet. I would have to say that Ireland's contribution to the other half of the world will not add in any noble way to our history.

Mr. Garland

On behalf of the Green Party, Comhaontas Glas, I support this motion which will provide a wide range of assistance to the developing world. However, it has to be said that there is a great deal of hypocrisy in our attitude to the Third World both at EC level and in this country.

Since the decolonisation of Africa, the former colonial powers have continued to plunder and exploit these unfortunate people. Our record in so far as aid is concerned is very mixed to say the least. On one hand, ordinary people have been extremely generous in their contributions to Third World organisations. Many Irish people have given of themselves selflessly to try to alleviate some of the worst poverty in Africa. However, this has been in stark contrast to the efforts of successive Governments who have contributed smaller and smaller percentages of our GNP to Third World aid each year.

It is interesting to trace the history of the efforts made by countries in the West to help the Third World. In the immediate post-war years it was very straightforward, because people were hungry and dying and we simply sent them food and money. We did not question why they were poor and dying. A few years ago we decided that the answer to the problems of the Third World was the development of trade. Hence the slogan "Trade not Aid" was coined. However, instead of making things better this in many ways made things worse. Increasing trade between nations is not necessarily a good thing despite the conventionally held view to the contrary. It should be realised that the real cause of the two major world wars was the issue of international trade. There is nothing wrong with the concept of national self-sufficiency either here or abroad but the domination of world markets by transnational corporations leads to an ever-increasing impoverishment of the countries in the Third World and will inevitably end in the collapse of our economic system.

The restoration of the ecological basis of life for humans, animals and plants is of primary importance, since this determines the wellbeing of a people. It is only when industrial nations put a stop to their constant industrial expansion that they will be able to establish a new relationship with the countries of the Third World. The Green Party are strongly opposed to the type of development which favours economic growth at the cost of natural and cultural resources. This type of development, together with the so-called aid to Third World countries, simply enables industrialised nations to further exploit and rob them of their lifestyles and natural resources. Instead, we want to work together with the countries of the Third World in developing a new economic policy and relationship which will not fall victim to the world crisis.

The Green Party have always been strongly opposed to the plundering of raw materials in Third World countries through military intervention. Such intervention has plunged us into another inhuman and horrifying war which fortunately has now been brought to an end but not without a tremendous human and ecological disaster, the full extent of which has not yet been seen. We support greater assistance for Third World countries with the aim of promoting their independent development. We consider these people equal partners of a humanity doomed to destruction unless we can create a meaningful and endurable form of communal life for everyone on this planet.

I want to refer to the various ways in which we exploit the Third World. Toxic waste disposal is probably one of the most cynical activities which we have imposed on these unfortunate people. I am glad this practice has now been brought to a conclusion but it is disgraceful that it was allowed to continue for so long. As the House is aware, environmental standards are rising in the developed world as countries seek to avoid the worst dangers of dirty industry and address the problems of years of environmental mismanagement. This has resulted in growing pressure by Governments and communities to find a safe way of disposing of much of our waste.

Stricter environmental standards have persuaded many industries to seek to expand in the Third World. They also take advantage of the cheap labour in these countries. We saw the results of this policy in the horrifying disaster in Bhopal in India. Thousands of deaths took place in the immediate aftermath of that explosion, hundreds more die each year from the direct effects of it and many more will suffer for the rest of their unnaturally short lives.

Another crime the West has committed against the Third World is the sale of outdated technology. We lend them money to buy materials and technology but, lo and behold, a few years later we tell them such technology is out of date and downright dangerous. This applies especially to nuclear power plants which are a source of debate in India at present. It will take India many years to pay for these outdated plants and they cannot afford to shut them down and develop safer ways of generating much needed power.

We have been using the Third World as a source of luxury goods for many years either by killing off their animals for ivory and skin or looting their silver and gold, with no benefit to the inhabitants of these countries at all. We have either corrupted them into obtaining the ivory and skins for us or herded them into townships where they live in unbelievable squalor and earn extremely low wages which just about cover shelter and food.

Another area of exploitation is the export of harmful consumer goods. It grieves me very much that our country, through the export of mercury soap and powdered milk for consumption by infants, has contributed to so much suffering in African countries. We in the First World also export out of date and inadequately tested drugs, the use of which is banned here. If one looks at the other side of the coin one can see that these imports have to be paid for by exports. Exports from the Third World are primarily raw materials, food and cheap textiles. The terms of trade, that is, the relative prices of exports by Third World countries as against imports, have worsened very considerably over the past few years. The growing of cash crops for export has resulted in major ecological disasters and famines throughout the Third World, in the destruction of the rain forests, the loss of irreplaceable top soil, the over-use of chemical fertilisers and the gross exploitation of people who work in appalling conditions for miniscule wages paid by transnational corporations who own much of the land in the Third World.

Many giant corporations have invested in vast tracts of land which were sold to them by dollar-hungry rulers, often military, and privileged elite, involving the eviction of small farmers who had been living there and growing food for their own people. The power of the US dollar means that in order to buy technology and manufactured goods poor countries are trapped into producing more and more food for export. Out of the world's 40 poorest countries, 36 export food to the USA. The Third World countries are forced to sell their goods at low prices and buy overly expensive products from industrial nations. This is the primary reason the Third World countries have such immense foreign debt.

The most serious form of exploitation is moneylending. We have become moneylenders to the Third World, with all its connotations. A recent UN development programme report shows that 98 developing countries transferred a net amount of $115 billion to developed countries between 1983 and 1988. This is probably the worst exploitation of all. There is little prospect of debts incurred by these countries ever being repaid. Certainly these countries have no moral obligation to repay the debts, as they repay them many times over in interest payments. In reality we are in their debt because of the treatment of these countries over the centuries by the so-called civilised and developed world. Third World organisations are calling for the writing off of these debts without any further ado, and the Green Party support this wholeheartedly. These countries will never be able to stand on their own feet if the western banks keep them on their knees by these crippling repayments.

Let us now look at possible solutions to the problems of the Third World. The key undoubtedly is land reform. By this we mean ownership and control of land by small holders and/or co-operatives who would be encouraged to grow subsistence crops. These people could be helped with the kind of intermediate technology advocated by Schumacher, that is simple farm equipment such as a well-designed plough, access to water and low interest or interest free loans to facilitate the development of these farming enterprises. The economic policies should be centred on settling as many people as possible on the land to avoid the horrendous urban slums now endemic in these countries.

Finally, there can be no realistic hope for a stable world as long as the world's poor remain without hope and as long as the industrial countries east and west continue their fight for raw materials and markets. What industrial nations choose to call growth is in reality a worldwide struggle of the strong against the weak, which in the end will result in the downfall of us all.

Mr. Durkan

I am delighted to have an opportunity of contributing to the debate on the Fourth Lomé Convention for a number of reasons, one of which is that Fine Gael have been to the forefront in encouraging overseas development aid for some years. The former Taoiseach, Deputy Garret FitzGerald, signed the First Lomé Convention when he was President of the Council of Ministers in 1975. Since then we have always encouraged increased overseas development aid, not purely for political reasons but simply because of the necessity to address a very serious problem.

The failure to address such a problem obviously has side effects and undesirable results, which I will not go into now because it does not come within the ambit of this discussion. Suffice to say that developed countries have a moral responsibility to assist those who are less well off and less advantaged. We should do so not by way of direct charity but by providing them with the means to help themselves. That is the concept of the Lomé Convention and it is a very good one. It is the old story, instead of giving the man or woman the fish they should be taught how to fish and to develop.

It is easy to be critical of the Government's commitment in this area. I know we have to work within financial constraints on an annual basis, but, notwithstanding all the competing demands, it is fair to say we could contribute a little more than we are doing at present. When we compare the performance of the Government with that of the Government who were in power from 1982 to 1987 we will see a dramatic difference. From 1982 to 1987 the Government, even though there were serious pressing and competing problems at home, pushed out the boat, took their courage in their hands, decided there were people less well off than ourselves and contributed accodingly.

I want to comment very briefly on a number of matters that have already been mentioned. For example, the Gulf War has been referred to on a number of occasions, and, you will be delighted to know, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, I am going to make a passing reference to it. As a person who has been critical of US foreign and economic policy for many years, both inside and outside this House. I cannot understand the attitude of some Members to the Gulf War. It was a horrific war and there is no question but it will have an impact on poor regions.

Mr. Byrne

It is even harder to understand how Deputy Deasy could feel like vomiting over his breakfast cereal when he hears poems of peace being broadcast.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Byrne, we do not tolerate any Scuds during this debate.

Mrs. Owen

He thinks it is a Patriot.

Mr. Durkan

Democracy, as we all know, is a great thing, but one of its weaknesses is that peace cannot be declared. Nobody declared peace on Saddam Hussein. We all said sanctions should be imposed, and that was a good idea but they were totally ineffective, as was proved before. They were ineffective——

Mr. Byrne

They were not effective. The CIA——

Mr. Durkan

Do not mind the CIA. They would be ineffective as long as a dictatorship reigns. If there is a democracy then sanctions will be effective. As long as there is armed revolt or armed intervention, talking in terms of sanctions is totally unrealistic.

Mr. Byrne

It is——

Mr. Durkan

With due respect, I do not interrupt the Deputy. If the Deputy listens he will find I am able to qualify what I have to say. For example, last August I did not hear a furore about the hardship caused to the Kuwaiti people, and they suffered great hardship, which we will hear about shortly. Some Members have spoken out previously in that regard. It must surely be time to come back to reality and recognise that if a serious problem exists, as was the case for the past six monmths, there are two ways one can deal with it. We can propose peace but we cannot enforce it. War is a terrible tragedy, as has been shown many times in the past. As I said in this House when we discussed the Gulf War, the loss of 100,000, 1,000 or 100 lives is a huge loss. I am quite sure if anybody had suggested in 1937 or 1938 that a war would have resulted in the loss of 100,000 or 200,000 lives, there would have been shock but not many people advert to the fact that 40 million lives were lost in the war that followed.

We must put the matter into perspective and ask whether you make the sacrifices in the beginning or later on. I say that as someone who has been critical of American foreign and economic policy but, on this occasion, the Americans were right and we should not adopt an anti-American position on everything. Sometime, somewhere, everybody is right about something.

All Europe has contributed to the spirit of the Lomé Convention and I hope it will continue to do so. The United States has a similar agreement in relation to similar countries, and they have attempted to offload the negative aspects of their agreements on Europe, oddly enough, with the resultant hassle in relation to GATT and other matters. If you decide to enter into an agreement, out of the goodness of your heart, with Third World or poorer countries and, following the imports which you decide to take on board, instead of consuming them in your own economy you decide to hive them off to other economies — in this case the European economy — while Europe is contributing, under Lomé, in a far better and forthright fashion, that should be highlighted. If the US continues to formulate similar agreements it should accept full responsibility for those arrangements and should not expect the rest of us to carry the costs.

Deputy Garland seems to decry economic expansion. He was going into reverse gear because, obviously, we have more to offer by expanding economically. If we remained as we were 150 years ago we would be very poor relations in today's economic world. Perhaps we might be able to get up in parliamentary sessions and talk about it, but that would be the sum total of our input. As a result of our connections, cultural or economic, with Third World countries we have advantages because they will benefit from such inter-changes. Quite a number of Irish people have become involved in working in those countries in a very meaningful way and have made a huge contribution to the development of their economies. Such exchanges are obviously beneficial to us in terms of bringing the seriousness of the problems which they face to our notice. It also brings home to them the necessity to expand and develop and to provide for the future. If we all remained in the same economic mould forever, as some people seem to suggest, we would have a very serious problem on our hands and very little to offer to Third World countries and little to gain from our relationship with them.

A number of hand crafted goods have found their way to this country from Third World countries in the last number of years and they have, rightly, become very fashionable. After all, the European Community has the money to pay for such items. This is useful for two important reasons; (1) it obviously has a financial impact and (2) it makes us aware of the culture and heritage of the people in those countries and it give us a better understanding and appreciation of their abilities which has become more noticeable as a result of the Lomé Conventions.

I hope the Government will take into account that, while we all appreciate their contribution to overseas development aid, it is not sufficient and leaves a great deal of room for improvement. If they put themselves in the position of the people in the countries which were referred to during this debate, any caring Government must surely realise that the needs of those people are considerably greater than is evident from the manner in which the Government are responding at present. I fully understand and accept that they have many competing demands but they must accept that this is also an important competing demand. They must remember that there is an onus and responsibility on all developed countries to accept a fair share of responsibility, acknowledging the problems which exist and drawing up a programme which will deal with them.

In many of those countries democracy does not exist and, unfortunately, many of them will not, in the immediate future, be as democratic as they would like. We can only assist and encourage; again — like peace — you cannot force democracy on anyone because then it is no longer democratic. We should encourage, through our membership of the European Community, countries where there is a greater tendency towards democracy instead of countries where assistance — direct or indirect — would get to the armed force instead of going to the people in real need.

Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (Mr. Calleary)

I sincerely thank all the Deputies who contributed to this morning's debate. In particular, I should like to thank Deputy Owen because she, in the course of her contribution, stuck mainly to the issue raised, the ratification of Lomé IV. Many of the other contributions, while containing many valuable points of which, of course, I will take note, ranged over the whole question of Third World aid as distinct from the commitments the Community has through Lomé IV.

Mr. Connor

We do not get any other opportunity to discuss this matter as we do not have a committee.

Mr. Calleary

I will come to that in a moment. A point raised by many Deputies, made strongly by Deputy Owen, is that Lomé has contributed enormously to the development of the ACP countries and Community relations. She spoke of the former general secretary, Mr. Carrington, and I should like to be associated with her remarks. I have know Mr. Carrington for many years, I worked with him and he was a very practical person who could have contributed much more to the agreement but for the fact that he decided to go elsewhere.

I fully realise that I have only ten minutes in which to reply so if I do not respond to some of the points I ask the House to forgive me. In relation to the Gulf War many people have talked about the US. The Gulf War was conducted as a result of UN resolutions. The issue seems to have been raised because of the tremendous expenditure. The Gulf War occurred because one member of the UN decided to try to take over a second. Today is not the time to elaborate on that but the fact that the action was taken by the UN as a result of Security Council resolutions and not by the US or Great Britain should be put on the record.

Deputy Higgins talked about person to person aid. We all have a certain influence in our own communities and if each of us could encourage our cities, counties or the areas we belong to to twin with a community in the Third World, particularly in some of the countries in which we take a special interest, we could achieve a geat deal. A number of communities in the country have done this already. Doing this on a person to person basis, as Deputy Higgins said, we would be able to see the results of the aid and assistance we give to those countries.

Much has been said about a foreign affairs committee which is to be considered by the House. Deputy Connor is looking across at me now. As a Senator he voted against the resolution put down by Senator Higgins, now Deputy Higgins, in relation to that Deputy Higgins's voice has been the one consistent voice in this House in relation to a foreign affairs committee. Times have changed and they should change. Deputy Higgins and I do not agree about everything let me say lest he thinks we do, and I will be saying something else to him very shortly.

Deputy Owen spoke about Namibia. As I said in my speech, we welcome the fact that Namibia, having achieved independence, sought and was granted accession to the Lomé Convention. We reviewed the request in the context of the role played by Ireland and other member states in the lengthy process which led to a full, sovereign, independent and democratic Namibia state. The Community reaffirmed its intention to provide assistance for the future economic and social development of the country and I am glad Ireland was able to play a role in that because of our long association with that country.

Deputy Owen, Deputy Garland and others, spoke about the environment and I am glad that has taken very special place because of the emphasis we put on the environment during our Presidency of the EC. I was surprised at Deputy Garland's contribution. Like Deputy Durkan I found it strange that Deputy Garland seemed to be advocating a policy that would take some countries back into the Middle Ages. He talked about a specially designed plough. How are we going to draw it? I do not understand his reference to Ireland causing suffering in the Third World by sending powdered milk. Maybe he has some connotations for it.

Deputy Owen was anxious that the Community try to monitor various environmental projects. Environment impact assessment will be actively implemented in all eight programmes and I will take her suggestions on board.

Mrs. Owen

The words "where appropriate" are worrying.

Mr. Calleary

I accept that, but I think there has been a big change in attitude even in the Third World and ACP countries themselves.

I will come back now to the thorny question that ran throughout the debate, that is our own contribution. We are paying the full figure we were requested in relation to Lomé and we are taking about Lomé specifically here today. Our contribution will be considerable over the next number of years. Let me refer to criticism of sending money to the Gulf region. Deputy De Rossa and Deputy O'Keeffe described Egypt as one of the poorest regions in the world. Approximately £3 million has gone to the people of Egypt for food aid. In the light of Deputy De Rossa's and Deputy O'Keeffe's comments I fail to see why that action has been criticised. On the other hand about £300,000 has gone for food aid to the Sudan from the same fund and another £200,000 has been sent to other developing countries, including our priority countries.

Deputy Higgins asked how we review the GATT. I suppose I could talk on that for half an hour but, unfortunately, I have not the time to do so. One of the lesser known objectives of the Uruguay Round is greater integration of the less developed countries to the GATT and the multi-lateral trading system. As Deputy Higgins knows, trade is a major avenue to economic growth and development. The Community is and has been especially sensitive to the needs and demands of developing countries and is making real efforts in this direction.

The Deputy asked how Lomé aid might differ from that given by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The third and fourth Lomé conventions laid special emphasis on agricultural co-operation and rural development, with an emphasis on food security. The Community has been concerned to ensure that the ACP countries develop their own agriculture effectively and should not depend solely on the workings of the market. Secondly, the STABEX and SYSMIN policies are unique to the Lomé Convention and have no parallel in either the World Bank or the IMF programmes. They recognise the crucial importance of Community exports to all countries in the ACP and the need to protect them against excessive price fluctuations. Thirdly, the Community gives nearly all its aid in the form of grants as distinct from the loans normally given by the IMF and the World Bank. Fourthly, the Community is giving a small proportion of its investment for structural adjustment and is concerned to ensure that severe social consequences are taken into account in the design of any programmes from the beginning of the design. This has been built into the process of policy dialogue which the Community has with all its partners.

In relation to Deputy Higgins's question about the Italian view of the emphasis being placed on quantity and the British view that trade is more important, the position is not as clear cut as that. We took the view that both trade issues and the volume of aid are important. In this regard we favoured additional concessions in agricultural trade which, as every Deputy knows, cause us some problems, and an increase in the resources which, as I indicated in my speech, are a 20 per cent increase in real terms.

Deputy De Rossa, Deputy Connor and Deputy Garland raised the question of debt. The ACP debt to the Community is between approximately 1 and 2 per cent of the total debt, so we are talking about an amount which is exceptionally small. The Council are examining the proposal from the Commission to cancel all ACP debt to the Community.

Mr. Connor

Will we support that, Minister?

Mr. Calleary

I cannot predict what will actually happen there but ours will be a positive approach. There are certain concerns in relation to some countries but our attitude is one of support. I cannot predict the outcome of the examination but there is a lot of goodwill towards the proposal in many countries.

Deputy De Rossa spoke about the delayed ratification and said that quite a number of the ACP countries had not ratified the agreement.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The House has ordered that I put the question at 1.30 p.m.

Mr. Calleary

The ten minutes was not quite enough to answer all the Deputies. I was about to say something very critical about Deputy O'Keeffe who played a very important part——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I am putting the question.

Question put and agreed to.