International Development Association (Amendment) Bill, 1977 ( Certified Money Bill ) : Second Stage (Resumed) and Subsequent Stages.

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Mr. Butler

I should like to say a few words on this Bill because I think it is a very important Bill. Since we are declared one of the rich nations of the world, at least by Senator Whitaker, I think we should realise our position and realise what we owe to the under-developed nations of the world. We have much to offer.

We have learned much in the past about famines. We have had a famine of our own in the last century and it is written in our history books what happened during that famine and the need for help. From that time we were a generous nation and we gave financial subscriptions to many organisations to help the Third World. We can go back to our school days and think of the weekly subscription we gave to the black babies in school and that in itself was a lesson to us here that something must be done by us and by other nations to help the Third World. It is vital and important. It is important for a number of reasons because if we do not help now we may be looking for help later on. If we help the Third World now, perhaps it will be the Third World's opportunity to help us in the future. That may be in the long term but we must do what we can for the poor. There are 700 million people living in absolute poverty in the world. The more we think about it the more we should be ashamed. The rich nations should be ashamed of themselves for not doing something about it before now. I hope they will learn their lesson and do much more than has been done in the past for these nations.

The type of help given can be in many forms. They must get financial help, educational help and expertise from the countries who have expertise to give. We, in Ireland, are proud that we are an agricultural country and have expertise in this field. The Third World needs that kind of expertise to develop their lands. It is from the land that the beginning will come. It is from the produce of the land that starvation will be eradicated. We have something to give in that direction and we should not hesitate to give it. We are talking about 700 million people. We are a small nation with a population of some three million. What can we do in relation to 700 million? We can give. If we sent a number of well-qualified people they can educate thousands. We already have religious people out there who would be in a position to bring people together so that they could listen to the advice of our people out there.

We would have to get to know the native skills but it would not take educated people long to learn these. We can give food—small quantities because we are a small nation. If we give this we will embarrass the rich nations into doing likewise. We are a Christian nation. Let us be Christian in this. Let us recognise what is required and do what we can for them.

Mr. Lambert

There appears to be a general consensus that the amount being proposed to help the Third World is too meagre. However, my thoughts are directed to the fact that the amount being allocated has had to compete with enormous amounts that are required in a great number of other Bills. We must look at ourselves and not lose sight of the fact that our "output per head of population" is one half of that of the UK and one-third of that of Germany and the USA. In the NESC report on "Population and Employment" Ireland fares badly, even in comparison with the smaller continental EEC countries, in terms of "output per head of population" and "output per person at work".

The best way of aiming to increase the contribution to a higher level in future years is, as the NESC report points out, by aiming at achieving by 1986 either full employment at European levels of output per head or full employment at European levels of productivity. This is in the hands of the Minister for Economic Planning and Development. However, in the meantime there has been a consensus in the debate on the need for an educational campaign on our responsibility to the less fortunate nations. If the theme of the campaign could only illustrate how well-off we are regarding climate, health, food and other natural resources in comparison with the unfortunate millions of people in the Third World, as Senator Whitaker has pointed out and Senator Goulding has illustrated in her first-hand experience of this, we would see that in return for our good fortune we owe to humanity the obligation to contribute a little more effort in order to generate the greater productivity necessary to give us the extra wealth, the employment and the opportunity to increase our allocation in this area.

One of the greatest human characteristics is an inherent willingness to help our fellow beings when one comes face to face with immediate distress or disaster. If only this instinct could be developed to awaken one's conscience to an on-going responsibility then we would be on the way to establishing the kind of purpose in life that has been lost through the lapse in the adherence to the discipline of Catholic teaching or to the Protestant ethic or, indeed, to a basic conscience in giving an honest day's work for an honest day's pay.

I therefore suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that he might encourage a supplemental allocation to the forthcoming "Buy Irish" campaign under the heading of a "Work Irish" campaign which could embody our responsibility to the Third World as well as to our own country. This could serve a dual purpose in helping us to increase the rate of growth in our gross national product and, at the same time, bring a fuller realisation to everyone in his daily work and daily life that greater monetary rewards for selfish reasons also involves an unselfish commitment to contribute to the betterment of humanity, whatever our beliefs.

Mr. Keating

I want to refer very briefly to a report, of which I trust all Senators have a copy. It is the report by Mary Sutton published by Trócaire and by the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace. It seemed to me last week that there was a follow-up to something that Senator Mary Robinson said which suggested that we were going to politicise this issue in a party sense in the Seanad. I hope we will not. I agree that a consensus is emerging. It is a sterile exercise for politicians to say in party political terms that X did more or Y did more. Putting this in context, we all have to say that none of us did enough— whether it was slightly less or slightly more, it was very far from being adequate. I commend to people the report of Mary Sutton. I hope it will be studied because it seems to me that it is fair, careful and thorough and, so far as it is possible in any party political sense, it is completely non-partisan. Of course it is on the side of increasing aid but then that is absolutely proper.

Let us talk about money. For example, looking at the table on page 22, regarding the overseas development aid commitment, I see that if we were to reach the target of .35 per cent of gross national product next year it would amount to £15.7 million and the following year it would be £21 million. Those are large sums of money and we are far from being rich enough to be lighthearted about sums of this sort. Put into the context of our gross national product, which after all is 300 times as big as those sort of figures, or put in a totally different way into the context of the annual expenditure per person on cigarettes or drink or the two combined, or in the context of our national expenditure on any one of a large number of things, the sum of money is small and it is precisely because it is expressed as a percentage of GNP that the amount is appropriate to each country. The Germans and the Americans are three times richer but then their GNP per capita is three times bigger and the size of their contribution in terms of each citizen is three times bigger. It is graduated.

I will not put the remainder of what I had to say, and I will be very brief. I do not see aid to the Third World in terms of duty or altruism; I see it as self-interest, hopefully enlightened self-interest, which is necessary for our own survival. The oil crisis which did awful things to us has, in fact, done much more serious things to the poorest countries. It has taken all their reserves and more and the price of what they have to import in terms of certain categories of raw materials, plus oil, has risen much faster than their exports. The Third World's economic position has deteriorated sharply as a result of the rise in oil prices, much more sharply than the position of the developed world. In other words, the gap is opening fairly briskly between the richest and the poorest. It is not being stabilised; it is not being closed. What does that mean? I am not prepared to document or argue over it. I take it to be so and I take it that those who look at the figures can convince themselves that it is so. It means that in a period of better communications the people who see the gap of income widening are now people with access—even if they are only to look in through a shop window—to television programes. They occasionally see movies; they occasionally see photographs in newspapers. They are no longer ignorant about the standard of living of the developed world in the way that they might have been 25 or 50 years ago. They know that the gap is widening and therefore their sense of political outrage and their sense of being exploited and oppressed is burgeoning all the time. That means that the attractiveness of alternative routes of development in political terms becomes much greater to them.

The dilemma seems to me that if the developed world to which we do belong does not bring the undeveloped world along a path of development that makes the citizens of the undeveloped world richer at a fairly appreciable rate then they will pick a path of development of a totally different kind that certainly the Americans and some of the other great powers in the world will not like and will not tolerate and we will be faced with the circumstances of a world war. It is not that the old countries of Europe are going to fight each other and probably not even the people in the Middle East are going to fight each other but the possibility of a world war is concerned with the control of raw material sources and the control of some of the great countries which are rich in people and raw materials but poor in income. Whether we can avoid the partitioning of the Third World between the great powers and therefore avoid a world war depends on bringing them on a path where they grow rapidly and satisfy wants.

There has been a lot of humbug and self-interest and, to use a simpler term that the young like nowadays, a lot of "rip-off" in aid. If anybody wants to find out about that there are the studies of Gunnar Myrdal and his people in Stockholm which documents it. A lot of the aid given by the developed countries has been aid in the interests of their own economies. A lot of the things given to the Third World have been entirely inappropriate. They do not need tractors, they do not need high technology; they need alternative technology which is designed to the limit of science but which is operated either by human labour or by the labour of draft animals and which is extremely labour-intensive. To the extent to which we give them technology appropriate for us, we steal their reserves of money and we bind them to our technology and, far from helping them, we hurt them. A great deal of aid has been aimed at extending the domination of one or other of the great power groups through physical control and commercial contacts, the network of spies and so on. Imperialism is not a fashionable word any more but it is the neatest word I know to describe the unequal relationship in economic terms between developed and undeveloped. It still exists and the undeveloped world is still being exploited. The world market is manipulated to pay them too little for their raw materials.

If we are genuinely concerned then it seems to me that psychologically we possess some great advantages. We possess the advantage of understanding psychologically and remembering oppression and exploitation. We are more psychologically inclined to identify with the oppressed than with the oppressor and that means we can treat people of another skin colour as if they were equal human beings. That is very important.

We are not so dominated by big industry that we are determined to export that sort of technology. We do not possess it ourselves. We are not determined to export it in the way the Americans, Germans, French or Swedes might. We have all the traditions for playing a good role, a role that goes by example far beyond our numbers or the possibility that we possess to influence directly and physically—we would be mistaken to exaggerate that. The example role is very considerable. Our acceptability is considerable, our psychological position is advantageous.

I hope we will reach the 0.35 per cent target fairly quickly and then the 0.7 per cent target within a reasonable time after that. We must do it on the basis of national consensus because it will mean diverting money from things that we would like to do at home. There are always choices when it comes to resource allocation and it will mean that if we give it to others we cannot have it to spend ourselves. If we can get political consensus to do that, hopefully whoever is in power will find it easier to do. We can only get that consensus on the basis of the conviction which seems to me central and it is the reason that I come back to labour it in the closing words of what I have to say. Bringing the Third World on to our sort of path of development, and satisfying at least the basic physical wants fairly quickly, is not a matter of altruism; it is a matter of self-interest, of guaranteeing that we can avoid a world war. It is, in the circumstances, in military technology now and in the foreseeable future, a matter of guaranteeing the survival of the planet because we cannot separate the bits in military or economic terms any more. It is a matter of self-interest, so hopefully we can get the consensus to achieve the targets quickly.

Mr. Harte

I welcome the Bill and I do so in the spirit of the Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations, Article 25. This is the spirit in which I think it should be welcomed. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care. In other words, where you have nearly two billion people living in squalor, filth, and suffering from malnutrition, disease and so on, any aid that goes to a country should go in that spirit, not so much on the basis of a charity but rather as an obligation. In this respect I am very pleased to see that not only are we continuing with the commitment already made but that there is an increase. Whether in fact the amount of the increase, having regard to the overall problems and difficulties our own nation faces, is desirable or not is a debatable point. Possibly we could have afforded more but I will not quibble because I am delighted to see it not only continuing but that there is an increase in the amount being provided. Possibly in a healthier state, we will see that continuation and a more substantial increase.

It is very hard to bring the position home to a lot of people although it can be done by the media. People are conscious of it. You can get a very emotional reaction but if you depend on charity, unless you make the collection straight away the emotion dies quickly. It is imperative that the State should always have this commitment to the less well-off people in the world. My colleague, Senator Keating, says that there is a certain amount of enlightened selfish interest. To some extent a lot of the things we do are in that kind of vein. I do not think it is wrong to think of it in that term. At the same time I also feel, while we are thinking of it on the basis of selfish interest, in the way it was expressed by Senator Keating, whether we like it or not the United Nations' declaration imposes a moral obligation on us. Again, without delaying the House as there is a general consensus on the Bill, it is good to see the increase. I wish it were more and I look forward to its continuation.

Mr. Lyons

I welcome the Bill in common with the other speakers. I only wish to say that the Bill and the effort involved in the Bill is only a drop in the ocean compared with what is needed and what will be needed to solve the problems of the Third World. As a nation we suffered famine in the past and we had our problems. Other nations came to our assistance at that time. Even though there was no such body as the United Nations or any similar body of organised nations then, there were nations who came to our assistance at that time. We can say that as a nation which has secured its independence, its own Government, its own institutions, it is only right that we at this time should make our contribution, small though it might be, to ensure that we set a headline for the people who can afford to do more, who should do more and who will have to do more if we are going to help the Third World in its efforts to establish itself.

Famine, wherever it may be in the future, will be accepted as a drag on the whole global world because we are living in a global world at the moment. All nations, no matter how small, some fighting for independence, some who have independence and do not know whom they are going to fight to maintain it, can help those who are in need. Some have more than they need and others have less. Unless a dream in the minds of world statesmen comes to pass, that all of the haves will give some day to the have-nots, we will never be able to solve this world problem as it should be solved.

A nation like ours, subjected for more than 700 years to the impositions of a stronger power, eventually throwing aside the trammels. knows more about the problems of the underdog than the greater nations who never had to suffer as we suffered. It will be up to us, in every forum in which this nation is engaged, to ensure that our voice, small though it may be, can be very loud in sustaining the views and the needs of the people who are in need, the Third World.

Let us also face the fact that, apart from what we as a nation do at Government level, all our people at personal level need to contribute. I am sure everybody listening to me is contributing to some organisation or other which is engaged in doing things for the Third World. I would say that the contribution from the people in their own individual right is far more than the State is contributing but this is only as it should be. This is because we, as a Christian people, recognise the needs of the Third World. Cynics might say: "What does your contribution mean, or even the Government contribution or even the contributions that individuals make?" Over the total picture, perhaps, it is small but if every community of our size that has something to contribute, were to contribute as much as we do, and as we will, then the problem could be solved sometime, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next year but eventually. I commend the Bill to the House.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr. D. Andrews)

The debate was distinguished by commitment, compassion, concern and finally by consensus. I am most grateful to the Senators for their contributions. Brief though they were they contained the general feelings of the nation as a whole and for my part I am grateful to them for the non-controversial fashion in which the IDA Bill before the House was received by them.

During the course of their contributions I took some notes. In fact, for the benefit of the historians who will come to look at this House in years to come, this is, in fact, the third occasion in which I have been in the House with this Bill. The matter has been articulated by Senators on three separate occasions. I have now formulised the notes which I made during those sessions. If, at the end of my, hopefully, brief but equally committed contribution I have not dealt with any points which have been raised by the Senators I will be glad to do so within my competence and my knowledge of the Bill.

This IDA Bill is not a direct function of the Department of Foreign Affairs. In fact, it is a matter which in the normal way is dealt with by the Minister for Finance. I am dealing with the matter on the basis that it is a Department of Finance function having regard to the World Bank features of the Bill.

As I have pointed out, the general agreement and welcome by the Senators of the Bill was certainly appreciated. I think they will agree that the work of the International Development Association is of crucial importance to the developing countries. In the context of this Bill we are talking about a minimum of 750,000,000 people living in the most abject poverty. I was very glad to hear Senator Goulding stating that she spoke from her own first-hand experience of visitations to these various areas over the years. I had the privilege, last year to visit the Indian sub-continent, including Bangladesh and Pakistan. When I say "the privilege" I do not know whether I would consider it a pleasure. I do not wish to be inhospitable to my hosts but certainly what I saw I think was reflected in the brief but concerned contribution of Senator Goulding. If one takes what we consider to be our poverty line and relates it to the horrors one sees in the Indian sub-continent and elsewhere, I reckon that they would consider our poverty to be somewhere in the nature of luxury. That is the reality of the situation.

To return to the general and specific points made by the Senators, the present replenishment of the $7,638 million will allow the IDA to continue to increase the value of their commitments in real terms over the next three years. In the last few days we have become aware that the replenishment is now fully effective as members allocated 80 per cent of the replenishment they formally committed themselves to contribute. We cannot give a formal commitment to contribute until this very important legislation passes through the House.

Senator FitzGerald and others had some doubts under a number of headings, for instance, whether the development assistance really found its way to the people for whom it is intended, and those people most in need of help. The most successful outcome of the prolonged negotíatíons on International Development Association Five demonstrates the widespread support for IDA in the international community. The larger industrialised countries with close strategic, economic, financial and traditional links with the developing world have to set a balance between the level of their bilateral aid programmes, which they can control directly themselves, and contributions to multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and IDA.

The continued strength of their support for IDA must, therefore, be taken as a reflection of the honesty, efficiency and appropriate and united nature of the IDA's operations. We share this view. This happy result has not been achieved by any accident. The IDA are constitutionally bound to aim their lending at areas for which neither commercial nor World Bank finance would be available. Only economic considerations can be taken into account in arriving at decisions. The IDA operate an extensive system of internal and external audit and financial controls which allows representatives of donor countries to air any views they may have on the handling of the funds provided.

Despite the wide range of technical assistance, economic and agricultural research, aid co-ordination and interagency co-operation activities of the World Bank group as a whole I think I will prove to the Senators that administrative costs are effectively kept to a minimum. Total World Bank/IDA administrative expenses in the financial year 1977 at $213 million will come to about 3 per cent of the $7 billion committed in loans in that year. The effectiveness of World Bank/IDA operations in alleviating poverty is continuously under review. While economic growth as such has never been the sole aim of the World Bank/IDA lending, as the Minister for Foreign Affairs pointed out in the Dáil, the World Bank group are increasingly concerned to find projects which will directly affect the living standards of the poorest sections in developing countries.

Senators Whitaker and Markey had some queries about the level of the Irish contribution to IDA Five. Since the notes I have prepared were typed a similar number of queries have arisen on the same point. At £5.8 million the contribution is nearly twice their contribution to IDA Four three years ago. It has been suggested that donors might maintain IDA Four shares in all IDA Five replenishment from the traditional donors of $7.2 billion. However, I might point out that the calculation was done in dollars. This meant that expected contributions in their own currency of countries whose currency had floated down against the dollar were inflated, and visa versa. When one considers that in general those countries whose currencies had fallen in value were hardest hit by the recession the shortcomings in this method of calculation are clear. In Ireland's case this method of calculation suggested a contribution of over £7 million. That is a 130 per cent increase over our IDA Four commitment whereas the average increase in dollars for the replenishment was 60 per cent. In the event, the undertaking to seek legislative approval for an Irish contribution of £5.82 million was warmly welcomed by the bank management.

As Senator Robinson pointed out, although the replenishment covers a three-year commitment period payments are spread over six to nine years as projects in developing countries for which funds have been committed come to fruition. Payments are not spread evenly over the period but come to a peak in the period three to six years after the replenishment becomes effective. Furthermore, payments overlap with payments under previous replenishments and replenishments to be agreed. Payments for 1978 are expected to come to about £1¼ million. IDA Six negotiations will start next year. I think Senator Robinson will agree, therefore, that the process is a continuing one and a continuously expanding one.

Another matter relates to the use of the word "unfair" in my opening statement. I was brought to task on that particular point by Senator Whitaker. I accept his criticism. I think the use of the word "unfair" was necessary. I accept full responsibility for its use in my opening remarks. It was possibly the wrong word to use in the context of what was stated.

It might be no harm at this stage to clear up a point about our subscriptions to the capital of the World Bank. It is true that as a member of the World Bank Ireland has benefited substantially from its advice and financial assistance through the years. Membership is obviously a sine qua non for receiving assistance. The contribution to the bank's resources, which counts as official development assistance, did not have to be made to secure these loans. To count as ODA, Ireland's paid-up capital in the bank had to be released in useable form, that is, a form which the bank could use in its lending operations. Many developing countries which receive loans from the bank are not able to contribute to its resources in this way. However, as a Part I member of IDA, Ireland will now be expected generally to release in convertible form any further increases in its paid-up capital. The borrowing phase of our relationship with the bank ended some years ago. No new loans have been received from the bank since 1975.

I would remind Senators that the Bill refers specifically to the International Development Association and that it is requesting payment to the replenishment of the fifth fund. In the circumstances, the debate was rather extended—I do not say this in criticism —into the general area of overseas development aid. It is a natural corollary to it, that it might be extended, but in the circumstances that might have been going outside the terms of reference of the Bill. However, Senators had the opportunity to express their point of view on ODA. I think on the basis of the natural courtesies, that I should be expected to reply to them.

The Senators, as I have said, took the opportunity during the debate to comment generally on the problems of the Third World, and what the appropriate Irish response to the Third World should be. The appropriate response, apart from the financial aspect, which is very important, is one of anxiety to continue to commit ourselves in every way possible to the Third World. Senator Conroy pointed out, although I do not necessarily agree with him, that it is not all about finance. That is a reasonable point of view but I would respectfully suggest to him that it has a lot to do with finance.

To return to the various contributions and to the notes I have made on them, while most of our multilateral commitments in the field of overseas development assistance arises as a result of the obligations of membership of various international organisations I would like to dispel the notion that all that is involved on our part is a cheque-writing exercise. This may answer Senator Conroy's point.

The development policies and programmes of these organisations are the direct responsibility of the member governments of the organisations concerned. This country has a role to play both in the process of policy formulation and programme implementation. I should like to mention, in passing, especially as some Senators referred to the problem of food scarcity in the world, that this week the governing council and executive board of the recently established International Fund for Agricultural Development are holding their first session in Rome. Having ratified the agreement establishing this fund in October, and having pledged an initial three-year contribution of £570,000, Ireland is a member of this governing council which will have a responsibility for the overall policy of the fund. In addition, we are part of a five-country "constituency" for the purposes of representation on the executive board, which is a body of 18 members with responsibility for the management of the fund. This involves a fairly intensive co-ordination of policy both within our own constituency—this is of primary importance to us—and among the member states of the European Community.

It is through the Community to an ever-increasing extent that Ireland can play a meaningful role in relation to the aid activities of these international organisations. The process of harmonising member states' development policies, in the context of international organisations, such as the United Nations and the United Nations' Conference on Trade and Development— UNCTAD—is well under way. While this will inevitably take place gradually it is undeniable that through the adoption of unified positions the Community can exercise a most significant influence on international development. Through the Lomé Convention, for example, the Community is already in the forefront of efforts to establish a more equitable international economic order. The convention explicity acknowledges the reality of inter-dependence and recognises, as the Minister for Foreign Affairs recently stated, that "we are no longer living in a world where the better off give something of their surpluses to the poor".

Our programme of bilateral assistance is, as yet, small but it represents a significant acknowledgment of our willingness to do something more for the Third World than merely fulfil the obligations which arise in this respect from Community membership and from membership of international organisations. Senators will be interested to know that last evening Dáil Éireann passed a token Supplementary Estimate to enable certain unexpended multilateral aid funds to be transferred to the bilateral programme so that additional commitments could be made before the end of the year.

I was very glad to note the approval of many Senators for a policy utilising the expertise and resources available in Ireland to the maximum extent possible in our development co-operation with developing countries. This is given effect partly through encouraging the involvement of Irish organisations. Many Senators made this point, which is a reasonable one, that in addition to the financial commitment, which is required by the nation as a developed nation to the less well-off countries, to the multilateral organisations, there are many other agencies which give magnificent assistance to the Third World and elsewhere. This has partly given effect to encouraging the involvement of Irish organisations in the operation of aid programmes of multilateral agencies, but mainly through the bilateral aid programme administered by the Department of Foreign Affairs, and, of course, the activities of the Agency for Personal Service Overseas—APSO—which is presided over by Senator Whitaker. He spoke with great authority and he spoke generally on a subject with which he has been deeply involved and deeply committed to. I am grateful to him and to other Senators for their contributions.

Encouragement and financial assistance are made available to support the mobilisation of the resources available through our universities, voluntary agencies, semi-State bodies, private sector firms, the co-operative movement and other sectors. The aim of the programme is to draw on the resources available in the country which will be of benefit to the developing countries. The procedure adopted is that consultations are first held with the developing countries concerned with a view to identifying the requirements that might be met by Ireland. This, effectively, is the mechanics of the lead up to prospective aid. The necessary skills and resources are then recruited in this country from wherever they are available. The projects formulated may involve the assignment of Irish personnel, the provision of Irish goods, of professional service, the operation of training courses or a mixture of all these. In each case the nature of the project is determined with reference to the particular requirements of the developing country concerned.

In this way finance made available for bilateral aid is spent on projects that have priority rating with the Government of the recipient countries and I think we are able to satisfy ourselves that resources made available are put to good use. The whole monitoring process is outlined in my introductory remarks in relation to criticism regarding the aid effectively getting to the people for whom it is intended. This is another feature of our own multilateral and, of course, bilateral aid. We have to monitor it to make sure that it is getting to those people who should benefit from the aid we give them. Again as has been expressed here, the enthusiasm and commitment of Irish society are channelled into a very practical programme of action.

I was very pleased, indeed, that Senator McDonald who had to be elsewhere this week had an opportunity of examining a number of bilateral aid projects in Lesotho. These projects were set up by the Department of Foreign Affairs and naturally by definition I am very pleased that the Senator got such a favourable impression from what he saw in that country. He will be pleased to learn that we hope to develop a number of new projects in Lesotho along similar lines in the near future. This bilateral programme is proving to be very successful and I should like to assure the House that provision will be made for a significant expansion in future years. It is intended that the bilateral component of the overall development aid programmes will increase at a proportionately faster rate than the growth in the programme as a whole. I told Senator McDonald that if the reply I have given now was not comprehensive enough, I would be glad to deal with the matter in more detail. Possibly I should correspond with him but if having read the Seanad debates he is still not happy with the fulsomeness or otherwise of what I have just said now I would appreciate if he would bring the matter to my attention when I would be happy to deal with it in more depth.

Senator Brennan made a number of excellent points during his contribution. He mentioned the provision of training facilities for people from developing countries and I naturally share his concern that such facilities should be made available as extensively and as effectively as possible. I welcome his support for the developments in this direction. Personally I like his idea about the educational establishment for those people going to the Third World. I think that was basically what the Senator had in mind. I certainly like that idea and I will have it examined.

However, in addition to what Senator Brennan pointed out during the course of his contribution, that type of training is catered for through the development of training resources within existing institutions and it might be that an additional new organisation would only add to the pyramid in the context. However, a substantial amount of technical co-operation with developing countries in the area of education and training is already taking place. This necessarily represents a satisfactory basis for future expansion. Of course this is not to suggest that the Senator's idea should be dismissed in any way. It should be examined very critically and if it was found good in addition to those organisations already offering training resources, it would be all the better that we should avail of his suggestion.

Senator Whitaker in referring to the question of administrative structures in relation to an expanding programme of aid to the Third World, urged that an early decision be taken on the establishment of an advisory council on development matters. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, with whom I discussed this matter, and indeed all the questions raised by the Senator, accepts the need for an advisory council. At the moment the Minister is at an advanced stage of consultation with other members of the Government about this proposal.

Senator Robinson raised in some detail the question of what target in respect of overseas development assistance this country should aim at in the immediate future. Again, this question was raised by Senator Keating in his usually clear contribution to the discussion arising from the Mary Sutton Study produced by Trócaire and the Committee for Peace and Justice, if that is the proper title for the committee itself. I do not say that in any flippant or facetious manner. Ultimately the target to be attained by all developed countries is the 0.7 per cent of the GNP prescribed in the United Nations' strategy for the second development decade. It is recognised, however, that some developed countries cannot be expected to reach this target by the end of the decade. In this respect a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the European Community in April, 1974 acknowledged specifically that three member states, including Ireland, would need more time than others to reach the target. This is because the three countries in question have either domestic structural difficulties, a relatively low per capita income or that their aid programmes are of relatively recent origin. Pursuant to that Council resolution the previous Government adopted a five-year programme of planned increases in overseas development assistance which has resulted in an overall allocation of £7.3 million in the current year. The amount of next year's allocation is in the final stages of consideration by the Government while the question of the appropriate target which this country might aim at in the immediate future is still being considered and I understand is still under consideration by the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

I am very sorry I took so long to reply to the debate but I considered the contributions to merit a fairly detailed reply. In relation to the contributions made since I prepared the more comprehensive replies just articulated, Senator Butler said that Senator Whitaker declared that Ireland was one of the richer nations of the world. We are reasonably high up in the league of wealthy nations. We should be grateful for that and I think equally we should take cognisance of the fact that we are well off and better off in relation to the countries whom we would hope to assist through the multilateral and bilateral agencies.

Senator Gordon Lambert displayed a patient approach in relation to our present economic circumstances and he suggested that we give more notice to the buy-Irish, sell-Irish, work-Irish campaigns, that by so doing will bring up our gross national product and that as a consequence there will be a spinoff to charity arising from the increase in national wealth. This is a very worthy idea and it is something that should be sponsored and encouraged as far as possible.

One of the more important statements made by Senator Keating was that to argue about which party did most in this regard was to bring the whole thing down to a futile political argument which was to nobody's benefit. That is the proper approach. We should not bring this discussion into the acrimonious political arena. By definition we have to bring it into the political area because we are politicians but to engage in acrimony about who did what is totally wrong in the context. I appreciate the Senator's articulation of that point of view. He will have listened to other contributions and will agree that generally his guidelines for the debate were followed very thoroughly.

I should also like to suggest to him that some developed nations can abuse aid to their own selfish national interest. They produce tractors and other technology which are not required in the first instance by the Third World or the Third World nations to whom those particular pieces of scientific technology are directed. The Senator continued in his exposition to deal with how the aid should be given. He pointed out that this nation has a moral place, that it plays a good role, that it has an example role to play and that it has a psychological role by virtue of its history, as pointed out so succinctly by Senator Harte when he quoted Article 25 of the United Nations' Declaration on Human Rights. If I may paraphrase him, he suggested that we should not be giving this by way of charity, that we should be giving ourselves, our people and our finances to the Third World not by way of charity but by way of entitlement. That is what the Senator was saying and I appreciate his point of view.

Senator Lyons traced the role of Irish history in relation to the Third World and suggested that Ireland more than 100 years ago was a famine country—1845, 1848, and 1849—and now in excess of 100 years on we find ourselves in the role of a developed country. He said that in our own selfish national interest we might consider that those countries that we are now helping might well find themselves developed countries in 50 or 60 years' time. That is a point of view that is worth remembering.

I do not think there is anything further to add. Again, my apologies for being rather lengthy but in the circumstances I felt that the contributions required that they should be dealt with in some depth.

Question put and agreed to.

Agreed to take remaining Stages today.

Bill put through Committee, reported without recommendation, received for final consideration and ordered to be returned to the Dáil.

Seanad Éireann debate - Wednesday, 14 Dec 1977