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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 30 Oct 1991

Vol. 411 No. 7

Adjournment Debate. - Abolition of Advisory Council on Development Co-Operation.

Deputy Proinsias De Rossa has been given permission to raise the decision by the Government to abolish the Advisory Council on Development Co-operation.

I propose to share my time with Deputy Owen.

The decision by the Government to abolish the Advisory Council on Development Co-operation represents the latest and perhaps one of the most unacceptable cuts yet in the development aid area. The decision is being implemented at a time when the council have completed a major review of all the areas of Irish aid programmes, including the role of the council, at the request of the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs. It covers issues such as future funding, structures and policy in the aid programme.

It is beyond belief that for a saving of just £84,000 the Government would decide to abolish the advisory council. There is clearly more involved. The Government have embarked for some time past on a deliberate policy of running down the Irish aid programme. It is my information that active consideration has been given to ending the entire bilateral aid programme and that a policy of emergency relief only would be substituted. Ireland's bilateral aid has already been cut drastically and in five years has fallen by more than one-third as a proportion of our GNP. Ireland's official contribution is now just half the British level, less than a quarter of the United Nations' recommended level and is probably the lowest in the developed world. The advisory council were in the best position to offer a critique of these cuts. The fact that the Government have failed to specify any coherent reason for their abolition indicates that the real reason is an unwillingness to face up to the issues raised by the council.

In the recent review of the Programme for Government there is a commitment to achieve a higher ODA/GNP contribution by the end of 1994. This is a platitude with little or no substance and leaves many unanswered questions. Will bilateral aid be increased or will our obligatory contributions to the UN in multilateral aid account for any increase there might be? Will there be any increase at all in 1992 and 1993?

The decision to abolish the advisory council shows that the commitment to increasing ODA levels in the new Government programme is an empty promise. There is no goodwill towards developing or taking a leading position in various European and world fora in favour of ending the poverty and hunger of two-thirds of the world population. In a situation where an estimated 30 million people face starvation in Africa, where an estimated one billion people live in absolute poverty throughout the world and where over one million children under the age of five die every month, a fundamental reassessment of our bilateral aid programme is urgently required. It is a stark fact that approximately 230 children will have died of hunger by the time this ten minute debate ends.

To develop and maintain a coherent, viable and meaningful Irish aid programme the Government need the assistance and advice which the advisory council can provide. Instead of abolishing the council steps should be taken to give them an expanded executive function to carry out specified work related to project selection, function and accountability.

I conclude by urging all the parties in this House to respond to an invitation I made over a year ago that we approach this matter on an all-party basis which would take the issue of ODA out of the area of confrontational politics.

I thank Deputy De Rossa. The proposal to abolish the advisory council is the greatest act of cynicism on the part of this Government who, in the past ten days, reiterated whatever commitment they had to the Third World by including an aspirational line in the renegotiated Programme for Government. We now see the value of that aspirational line. This Government's record, together with the record of the 1987-89 Fianna Fáil Government, is a litany of cuts and shame. The bilateral aid programme has been cut by 40 per cent since 1986, the Oireachtas Committee for Development Co-operation has been abolished, the co-financing element with the excellent voluntary agencies has been drastically reduced and the percentage of GNP spend on ODA has been cut from 0.25 per cent annually in 1986 to 0.16 per cent in 1991. Now we have this further abolition.

The Government and the Minister for Foreign Affairs clearly wish to undermine our democracy by doing away with any independent expert voice which might from time to time be a thorn in their side. How can the Minister claim that he needs to save the paltry sum of £84,000 by abolishing this expert council when other Departments of State have consultancy budgets ranging from £145,000 in the Central Statistics Office to £260,000 in the Department of Energy and a whopping £10 million for consultancy fees in the Office of the Minister for Finance?

In the course of my work as spokesperson on development co-operation I have found the reports of the advisory council extremely useful. I compliment the many expert people who have given freely and generously of their time and expertise. This country's representatives will no longer be able to hold their heads high at international development fora if this Government continue to cut away at our development assistance to the poorest of the poor. Ireland has the lowest record of official development assistance of all OECD countries.

I would ask the Minister to publish as soon as possible the two most recent reports submitted to him on the gender issue in relation to development co-operation and on the overview of the Irish aid programme. I would ask him to tell me what he means by an informal independent committee which he proposes to set up in place of the advisory council. It would probably cost him a great deal more than the £84,000 he is trying to save.

I am very glad of the opportunity to clarify the position in relation to the points raised by Deputy De Rossa and Deputy Owen. I appreciate very much the manner in which they have put their arguments.

The Advisory Council on Development Co-operation was established in December 1979 by a Fianna Fáil Government to provide a forum for a representative discussion of matters relating to development co-operation and to offer advice to the Government, through the Minister for Foreign Affairs, on such matters. The present council of 19 members was appointed in 1989 and their term of office expires in December 1991.

Deputy Owen referred to the fundamental reassessment of our bilateral aid programme. I asked the council to carry out this task and the reports to which Deputy Owen referred were prepared at my instigation. The decision to abolish the Advisory Council on Development Co-operation was taken by the Government in the context of the need to find savings in all areas of public expenditure. This step was taken with regret and only after the most careful consideration. I fully recognise that in a situation where such savings must be made in the interests of a tight control on Exchequer spending, it is inevitable that hard decisions will be necessary, even in respect of such items as ODA expenditure.

I wish to reassure the Deputies and the House that the decision to abolish the council does not in any way diminish the Government's commitment to overseas development assistance. We are making every effort within the resources available to increase our levels of expenditure on multilateral and bilateral aid to developing countries. In 1991 our total ODA allocation is almost £46 million, or 0.19 per cent of GNP, an increase over 1990 of some £11 million.

Tell us where that came from.

This commitment is underlined in the text of the revised joint Programme for Government where the Government give a clear undertaking that a planned programme of increases will be made in the period 1992 to 1994 so as to achieve a higher ODA/GNP contribution by the end of that period.

I would also stress that this decision was taken, however reluctantly, solely on the grounds of financial costs. I would like to put on record my deep appreciation of the valuable contributions made to the work of the council by present and past membership in their function of providing advice on development co-operation matters.

I had a meeting last May with the chairperson and representatives of the council to inform them of the Government decision and the reasons behind it. I assured them on that occasion that the council would not be wound up until the end of December 1991 in order to allow them to complete their work programme for 1991 and to allow for the term of office of the present council to expire. I repeated these points at a further meeting in October.

While it has been found necessary for financial reasons to abolish the council at the end of this year, it is intended to retain a source of independent advice on development co-operation matters through the establishment of an informal independent committee. I am in the process of establishing a committee on these lines and hope that it will be in place at the start of 1992. I can assure Deputy Owen that it will not cost a fraction of what the existing council costs.

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