Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 14 Nov 1984

Vol. 106 No. 1

Aid for Developing Countries: Motion.

Mr. M. Higgins

I move:

That Seanad Éireann notes the need for an aid programme directed towards developing countries that excludes military aid for oppressive regimes as a principle and that has no structural disadvantages for aid-receiving countries and asks the Minister for Foreign Affairs to advance this view as part of an integrated foreign policy at home, in the European Community and at the United Nations and further calls for a full report on the Irish and European Community's response to the food problems and famine in several African countries.

In introducing this motion in the name of Senator Robinson and my colleagues in the Labour Party, there is no doubt in my mind that, in the nature of events which give urgency to the discussion on this motion the discussion will concentrate on the widespread famine in Africa and the commendable Irish response across a number of institutions both public, semi-public and private to resolve the food crisis. However, the motion itself is an attempt to set these issues in a wider context. I hoped that in so doing, I would be able to develop and bring forward the response of the Irish public which has been demonstrated so magnificently so far. Indeed, I do not want to waste the time available to me so, I pay one single tribute to all who are responding in their different ways at levels of individual and community sacrifice to assist in combatting the problems in Africa, including an attempt in my own city to bring all the residents' associations together to collect money from every house, something that I think is taking place all over Ireland. However, the principles of the motion are really five.

First, the motion noted the need for a comprehensive development strategy. This arises for a great number of reasons. Let me say there is no tension between these general principles now and the specific problem of starving children and adults in Africa. Many of these problems were predicted. Many were predictable, and distinguished groups of scientists published reports predicting the problems that would arise in relation to food shortages, in relation to agricultural production capacity, in relation to the problems that would arise. I heard Senator Killilea, at a committee meeting last evening, say that countries who have no capacity to produce food would lose their capacity to buy food and so on. Many of the problems to which the Irish public are now responding were predictable and were predicted. It behoves us to respond, not only to the tremendously moving accounts of the people who are dying on the African Continent, but to ask ourselves a further question as to why we did not develop a broad general development policy.

If I may give an example of what I am saying, several people came to me and commented upon how moving they found Deirdre Purcell's account of conditions in Ethiopia in the Sunday Tribute of 11 November 1984. On page seven of that newspaper she describes a child dying. She said “Manama died quietly, making no sound; her eyes closed gently; that is all.” People are moved, of course, by this. It has been impressive to see the individual response. The appropriate analogy seems to me as being the sight of the people who came out of the camps at the end of World War II. It gave rise after a certain delay to a consideration of the issue of human rights, in other words that humanity would not sink to such a level again as to allow atrocities of this kind to be perpetrated on other human beings. But the point that must be emphasised is that the need for these human rights pre-existed. It existed before the camps. We knew that many of these were predictable and indeed, as I said, distinguished groups of scientists suggested that these would happen.

The second main element of the motion asks for such a broad integrated development policy to be made a central feature of foreign policy. I want to say that the present Minister with responsibility for development aid will have the support of my party and myself in making sure that the aims of development policy be given a priority within general considerations of foreign policy. What I had in mind in this provision was that very often issues of trade advantage are pushed in tension against development aid proposals. Issues of more global foreign policy considerations, such as, for example, the conflict between the Eastern and Western blocs so-called, are also dragged into the equation. What this second element argued for was that a development policy was so important in relation to the future of humanity spread across the different needs, in terms of food and survival and the development of the human personality, that it should not allow itself to be tampered with by other considerations.

I want to thank the Minister of State for being present under great difficulty this evening to listen to this debate and I want to pay tribute to his colleague, Deputy Peter Barry, Minister for Foreign Affairs, in resisting the attempt to politicise, for example, the discussion on aid to Central America recently at San Jose at the end of September when it was suggested that the country Nicaragua be excluded from aid to that region. In doing so, the Minister defended not only the integrity of our own foreign policy but the integrity of the Community's independent position in relation to aid, and deserved and has earned respect for that.

Mrs. Robinson

Hear, hear.

Mr. M. Higgins

The other parts of the motion which I think are important are in relation to the fact that we have to develop and to establish a development policy that will be based on a historical analysis of what poverty has arisen in the world. This means destroying the notion of there being two worlds, a world of undeveloped countries and a world of developed countries which can and do exist apart. The fact is — and it is a matter of scholarly argument as to the degree to which it has had an effect, but as to its existence there is no doubt — that it has been the practices of the developed world which have very often created the problems of the so-called undeveloped world, even in relation to food shortages, because food shortages are not explained solely in terms of either the productive capacity or the transfer capacity of the countries with population requirements. It is also assisted by the structure of international debt, by the deterioration in the terms of trade between the industrialised countries and the non-industrialised countries, and it is also affected, in such, by the structure of international aid and the world financial institutions. The elements that are mentioned in the motion would suggest that we develop this policy not only for ourselves but that we support it within the European Community and in the international fora such as the United Nations and so forth.

The final part of the motion dealt with asking the Minister to give an opportunity of responding, as no doubt he will, to the particular two separate problems, the food problems of the African countries and the immediate problems of famine. When I say the two separate problems the questions of the food problems of Africa have engaged the concern of a number of distinguished scientists who have looked at the effects of this — for example, the structure of soils, irrigation problems, the whole question of a hostile environment, the question of the supply of grain and so forth. The Leader of the House, Senator Dooge, is a competent person to comment on some of these aspects as he has served on some of the international committees that have been addressed to this problem and is, in fact, a living testimony to the fact that the problems of Africa in relation to food are not certainly current and will certainly not disappear and that they were predictable and are now predictable over an unfortunately longer time span than we might have welcomed. That is the reason that these different elements were included in this particular motion.

Helen O'Neill, who has served as an adviser to the consultative committee on development co-operation, wrote some time ago in a paper entitled "Irish Aid Performance and Policies." She spoke about the evolution of Irish policy in relation to the developing countries. She spoke of the period of the fifties which included particularly missionary activity and the commitment that followed from United Nations membership. The second stage that she identifies was the sixties, a period in which we passed into the category of a donor country. In 1965 we became a bilateral donor on a small scale. Stage three in the seventies was the period during which our bilateral aid programme was established, and she regards 1973 as the turning point in the development of Ireland's overseas development aid programme.

I would like to think that we are now moving into stage four. As people read of the child dying in Ethiopia and as people raise funds to be of assistance in trying to stop the deaths that are immediately observable and of which good journalism and modern technology through television have made us aware, one would like to think that now is the time for passing into a further stage of responsibility in the matter of development aid. For that reason, I am very anxious to urge on the Minister my first immediate suggestion. That is, given what I believe to be the wide public support for pushing forward our development policy, that it is a time for him to put to the Cabinet the suggestion that, we do not take the average performance over the last few years in relation to development aid. For example, in Britain it had been anticipated that there would be a cut in development aid funds and then, given the response of the British public, that was revised. I am not saying that we should copy the British in this regard but it was a good development.

Far from revising downwards our agreement in the Programme for Government we should seek to reach our target in development aid as .05 per cent of gross national product each year until the United Nations target of 0.7 per cent is reached. The proposals to revise that would, in effect, cut that by a third, or by a fourth in real terms. Given the Irish public interest, the Irish Governmental response should be to think again in terms of reaching the target.

Mr. Killilea

Hear, hear.

Mr. M. Higgins

We would be thanked by the world for joining the tiny group of countries who have made such a commitment. I know only two that come immediately to mind. Norway and Holland would be the countries that have attempted to reach that target. The position today, as we move this motion, is that the overall expenditure on aid in the world is, in fact, falling. In the Soviet bloc and Eastern bloc countries development aid has been almost frozen. The United States' contribution was frozen in the end of the seventies and has been falling in the early eighties. There has been a slight increase in the contribution of some of the Arab countries. It would be a very fine development to take such a step and I would urge it most strongly. I also think that it would have a moral effect within the European Community and would reflect on Ireland's Presidency of the Community. It would create a great push towards emulating that.

To take up the fundamental issues that are involved here, it is necessary to think in terms of what the situation is that we are dealing with. I have said there is a special reference to Africa. Today, 23 countries of Africa are affected by a food crisis. The worst affected are Ethiopia, Mozambique, Chad and Mali. In 1983, the United Nations estimated that one African in three, 150 million Africans, were undernourished. Today the figure is higher. In 1981, the average African had ten per cent less to eat than in 1970. However, this same African produced 26 per cent more food in 1982 than in 1970.

We come to a number of points. At the same time as these great shortages exist in relation to the world population, we have dislocated resources to the point at which three to four tonnes of nuclear destructive material exists for every man, woman and child on the planet. We have created a situation in which the dislocation not only of physical resources but of intellectual resources, has two-thirds of the world's physicists, for example, involved in the production of materials which will be used for military destructive purposes. It is extraordinary that when the television cameras of the world begin showing children and other humans dying like flies, we begin to think that we can have a quick and short-term response. It is important that it take place and that the situation be acknowledged. It is equally important that we realise what the structural basis of that problem is.

Mr. Killilea

Hear, hear.

Mr. M. Higgins

The structural basis of the problem involves ourselves. It is rather like imagining that you can with a stroke eliminate, for example, the buildup to the Irish famine. Historians would tell you that we were in a position where we exported grain while people died of starvation. The position is that African countries are exporting basic food commodities while populations are starving. It raises a number of questions that have lain dormant since the virtual neglect of the Brandt Report. My views on these questions involve such issues as the renegotiation of the world economic order, the whole relationship between the developed world and the undeveloped. The latter is the producer of primary commodities, the first is the major consumer of the major resources of the world, dominating the world resources and so the economic reconstruction debate is not taking place.

Worse than that, the development within some of the industrialised countries — for example, the effect of the USA high interest rates — has exacerbated the debt problems of many of these poorer countries. It has equally put a strain on the financial institutions and it has politicised financial institutions that used to give assistance. Last night a committee of which many of us are members agreed, for example, even in aid that political considerations should not preclude the giving of urgent aid and assistance to countries. Nevertheless, we are looking at a situation where far from there being renegotiation of the international economic order so as to redress the balance between the developed and the undeveloped world, this process came to a halt in many places.

The Brandt Report had an appeal to two principles. It was a moral appeal that we would assist some of the worse problems of the undeveloped world but, equally, it was an appeal to self-interest, because, it suggested that the inner problems of the developed world could be solved in some respects by developing assistance in a particular way. In many ways, it was far from being a radical document in that regard. It certainly was not in ideological terms a socialist document. It was built on the two principles of reconciliation between the needs of an undeveloped world and the economic behaviour of a developed world. Today, we are witnessing a situation where our concern has moved to one country, for example, but there are other countries that will have a situation as bad as Ethiopia or even worse.

Mr. Killilea

Hear, hear.

Mr. M. Higgins

Countries such as Chad and Sudan and Lesotho. President Nyere of Tanzania once said about the World Bank that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were set up by and are still controlled by the rich nations of the world. Whether they are now assisted in serving the purposes for which they were established I would have thought questionable.

What is quite certain is that, apart from the International Development Association's subsidiary, The World Bank, they are not instruments for attacking world poverty and dependence. The International Monetary Fund, in particular, endorses and serves the present international financial structure rather than in any way acting as a corrective for its injustices. Further, although it is a creature of the developed nations, these hide behind the IMF when they find it convenient. They pretend that it has a special expertise and is politically neutral. When a poor country seeks credit, it is therefore told first to reach an understanding with the IMF. This approach must be ended and replaced by a system which will support development and not crush it as is the current deplorable case of Jamaica. Jamaica is one of the corpses to this international politicisation of the international political institutions.

The next potential corpse is, of course, the country from which I have just returned, Nicaragua, where economic destabilisation is the principal instrument of the destruction of Nicaragua, not interventions. Since January, 1982 it was precluded from all loans from the World Bank, all loans from the Inter-America Bank, it was the only country in Central America denied funds to build roads, hospitals rural clinics and so forth. It has 30 per cent of its export crop locked up in a war zone, totally because of the effects of the large international institutions now threatened by commercial banks — and you can move on. In 1979, coffee cost 2½ times what it does today so it produces more. Like some of these countries in Africa, the terms of trade go against it. War costs were $287 million in one year and the terms of trade cost $350 million. You wait for the country to die, you use food shortages to create internal discontent. Therefore what I am trying to do is to make the case for a comprehensive development policy. I am saying that that development response will have at the very beginning to set out an analysis as to how, in fact, different problems arise.

I am not saying that because you are interested in the overall development strategy at global and at international regional levels and in relationships between the developed and undeveloped world, you are uninterested in the food problem, or the famine problem. They go together. I would argue that the establishment of the development strategy and the acceptance of some new initiative must include the renegotiation of debts, a restructuring of trade, a re-examination of the international aid agencies, a whole new set of procedures for the transfer of technical assistance and for the transfer of both short-term and medium-term food aid. We need that kind of analysis, and I think it will mean that we accept a number of principles that we will, perhaps, be less willing to accept, and this is where the politics of it all comes in. It is a very significant moment in the moral development of anybody when he or she moves from compassion to a sense of justice.

Mrs. Bulbulia

Hear, hear.

Mr. M. Higgins

We have been shown as being willing to give to those that we perceive to be in distress, but to be able to live as equals in a world requires a very significant moral leap forward. It is that that is being asked for in the suggestion of there being a broad development policy.

The evidence is that the major powers in the world, by their excessive defence spending, their artificial interest rates and their trade policies which exclude the development of the undeveloped countries' economies, are unwilling to accept these principles of development. These must find their way, in some form, into an Irish strategy with, for example, a commitment to equity, a commitment to the freedom that is integrity and the right to self-determination of these nations to solve their own problems in their own way, a commitment to democracy and the rights of countries to define democracy in their own terms.

I find it unusual to be one of 400 people with 1,000 journalists following in one's train, asking whether a country that we are economically destabilising within 18 months meets our voting standards or not. Then we all come home again and we wait for the country to be strangled to death by the international economic institutions. That is indefensible. To my mind, the other problems that arise would deal with respect for the countries that are seeking to undo problems of different kinds, of imperialism and of dictatorship. Equally there would be a respect for cultural diversity, and one matter on which I am sure Senator Dooge would be so competent to speak is that in development strategies we will have to have recognition for environmental integrity.

There is no doubt whatsoever that the behaviour of the industrial world has required the destruction, for example, of forests in some zones. There is the whole question of the pressure we have put on people and that what we have made them sell has created massive ecological disasters in the short term and has threatened even further ones in the future. I am thinking of the incredible position in which the earth finds itself. It is degraining at the moment at the rate of 100 acres per minute, 50 million acres per year. Deserts are growing at the rate of 15 million acres per year and so forth.

I hope I have made the point for the necessary extension of this wonderful concern that the Irish public have demonstrated into a political commitment, I hope we will have the courage to say that the Cabinet are placing on the agenda the matter of the return to achieving the United Nation's target in relation to development assistance and that they are doing this hoping to influence other members of the European Community and other countries in the world. I hope they will go on from that to say that not only are we doing this, but we intend to establish, in the White Paper which will be published, a comprehensive analysis that will truthfully acknowledge the role of the developed world and the industrialised world in creating so many of the problems of the undeveloped world, so called, and of the present economic policy which has created a crisis in relation to international debt, inflexibility in relation to trade, the politicisation of aid, the obstructions on the transfer of technology and so forth.

Equally, I feel that on TV screens and in photographs and written articles in the newspapers, we have been able, too, to bring forward issues of development education in a way that we were never able to do before. People are now interested in this issue. I know that many of the contributions from the voluntary sector, the private and the public, have come often from those who have been hurt most. There has been an incredible generosity. I want to impress on the Minister of State, above all, the political initiatives that are important, the political issues that will have to be faced.

Within the European Community we occupy a singular role. I have paid tribute already to the manner in which efforts to politicise the European Community in seeking to exclude a country from aid have been resisted. I would like to hear, where political solutions are being put forward to serve as a context for the economic recovery of countries and regions, that this will be defended by this country and that we will continue to perform in the way that we have.

I will conclude by saying this. Much of what I have to say requires an internal political response. Externally the political response lies at the United Nations. It lies at the European Community in the way I have spoken about, particularly through instruments like Contadora. Very specifically, I want to ask the Minister of State to use such influence as Ireland may wield in the development, in the funding agencies, the internationally financing agencies, to seek to remove the political block that has been placed against some very necessitous countries. I am very grateful for the presence of the Minister to hear this. Above all else, the most important point is that we must make up our minds now that we will not look simply at individuals dying in one country in one year, but that we will make a leap forward of a very significant kind into breaking the impasse that exists in renegotiating all these obstacles that will threaten — and they do threaten — regular death of so many millions of people throughout the world.

Mr. Ferris

In seconding the motion in the names of the Labour Party Senators, I, too, want to join my colleague, Senator Higgins, in welcoming the Minister of State, Deputy O'Keeffe, who has joined us for the debate this afternoon. On page 11 of the summary of Building on Reality it is stated under the heading “Development Aid”.

Aid for the Third World remains a priority for this country. While we remain well short of our long-term objectives in this area, the Government have decided to continue to increase the share of GNP devoted to this purpose by 0.015 per cent per annum, thus raising this provision by 47 per cent from £34 million to £50 million by 1987.

We recognise that that type of increase might be significant and we also realise that a certain amount is obligatory on us by our membership of the Community. While we on this side of the House do not want to decry the significance of the increase, we are saying that our base at the beginning — when we started to take into account our commitments to the Third World, particularly in the seventies — was so low that we are not really achieving the target that we have set for ourselves and that we agreed with our partners in Government when we formed the Joint Programme for Government.

I realise that other parties have a specific commitment in this area also, but the Labour Party above all — and this is written down for everybody to read — have always had a commitment in this area of development aid, which has resulted in this motion placed before the House today. The motion notes that the need for this aid programme should be directed towards developing countries and that that would exclude military aid for oppressive regimes. In another section of the motion we call on the Irish Government — to which the motion refers — and the European Community. Indeed, our Presidency of the European Community is of paramount importance to us.

Like Senator Higgins, I join in the tribute to both the Minister and the Minister of State for the use of that office at this moment to ensure that we have a direct response when the question of these food problems and famine in several African countries arises. Our party's policy has been outlined in our policy statement on "International Development Co-operation". There is a section that says:

As a socialist party, the Labour Party sees the issue of world development as an aspect of the fundamental search for freedom and equality and that of co-operation for development as an expression of solidarity.

Working here in Ireland as we are on this motion — and indeed more widely throughout the socialist international — the Labour movement are committed to the elaboration and implementation of policies which will adequately discharge our responsibilities and fully realise our political contributions in the cause of the true development of all peoples and countries.

In recent weeks, because of the power of the media, everybody in Ireland had become conscious of the tragedy in Ethiopia. Because of their generosity, they have responded magnificently. Ethiopia is just one part of what Senator Higgins has outlined as what was predicted, was predictable and has happened, is happening and is likely to happen throughout the whole Third World. It is important that we broaden our thoughts away from Ethiopia, which is a tragedy in itself, and look at the whole Third World and what development in the Third World will mean and what responsibilities it will place on us as a developing nation ourselves and as part of the western world. The world population between now and the end of this century is likely to increase by nearly a half — from 4.3 billion to six billion people. The vast majority of this increase will be in the Third World. That area is least able to provide for them. In 1978 30 million people died from malnutrition. The majority of them were under five years of age. Those figures have escalated since. Television has brought this fact to our door steps.

Unemployment is as high as 35 per cent of the total labour force in developing countries. In the search for jobs migrants have ensured that urban slums double every five to seven years. Today one-third of all the developing country town dwellers live in shanties without adequate access to minimum nutrition, safe water, health facilities, primary education, public transport or cultural facilities. These are the urban poor and their numbers are growing by approximately 15 million per year. At present approximately 800 million in the Third World live in absolute poverty, their condition is so limited by malnutrition, illiteracy, disease and low life expectancy that it is below any rational definition of human decency. It is imperative that we respond positively to this situation if we are to call ourselves true Christians.

During the seventies this meant for hundreds of millions of people, living at the bare margin of survival, an income of £1 to £1.50 per year. For a large number of people economic growth completely bypassed them. Only about a quarter of the world's population live in the industrialised countries yet they have over 80 per cent of the world's output and exports and they have 85 per cent of world armaments and consume about 87 per cent of the total world energy. They use 78 per cent of the world's fertilisers and have more than 90 per cent of all the minerals such as aluminium and copper. That accounts for 98 per cent of the total spending on vital research and development.

These are the kind of figures that put in to context our responsibility as a small nation but one that has always shown concern for people worse off than ourselves. We lived through a period when many people glibly said that charity began at home. Nowadays there is no longer peace of mind for those of us who sit back and let other institutions wealthier than us do more than we are doing. The point made by Senator Michael D. Higgins is that if we, as a small nation, currently having presidency of the Community, make a significant contribution, even if it means setting priorities within the terms of the Building on Reality, even if it means calling to our minds what demands can be made on us for the Third World, we will set an example for nations much stronger than us in the Community and in other parts of the western world.

I have confidence that the Minister in his response to this motion will accept it in the spirit in which it has been placed on the agenda of the House. I want to allow the other side of the House to contribute as well as the Minister of State but before I finish I would like to quote from Tim Bergin from a document he published called Reshaping the International Order in 1977 which stated:

We have today about two-thirds of mankind living, if it can be called living, on less than 30 cents a day. We have today a situation where there are about one billion illiterate people around the earth although the world has both the means and the technology to spread education. We have nearly 70 per cent of the children of the Third World suffering from malnutrition although the world has the resources to feed them. We have maldistribution of the world's resources on a scale where the industrialised countries are consuming about 20 times more than the resources per capita of the poorer countries. We have a situation where in the Third World millions of people toil under a broiling sun from morning until dark for miserable rewards and premature death without even discovering the reasons why.

This motion is put before the Minister of State in the knowledge that it will trigger off a positive response from him and the Government in this particular area. As a party we have made a major contribution over a number of years. We have never been afraid to discover the facts and to put them on the record of this House and before every Socialist group in Europe and internationally. We feel we have an obligation, irrespective of the financial restrictions, to do something. I hope that there will be an adequate response in relation to the distribution of aid in a proper structured way that will ensure that our responsibilities to those who are less well off will be met with all the human Christianity and compassion this country and the Government are capable of.

Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (Mr. J. O'Keeffe)

I sincerely welcome the initiatives of the sponsors of this motion in providing the Seanad with an opportunity to discuss the important question of Ireland's response to the problems of developing countries. Listening to the contributions so far it appeared to me that the motion raises issues which, amongst others, I have presently under detailed consideration. I take this opportunity to announce to this House that work on a policy paper on development is now well advanced. I hope to be able to bring it to the Government within the next few months.

The House can be assured that in their general policy towards developing countries and in their aid programmes a primary objective of the Government's approach is to foster self-sustaining for self-reliant growth in the developing countries. Thus, for example, there is emphasis in our bilateral aid on enhancing the capacity of the developing countries concerned to undertake development programmes by assisting with institutional support and manpower development. We also assist, as far as possible, in the development of the natural resources of the countries concerned and in the promotion of internal economic linkages so as to encourage soundly-based growth.

Moreover, since the objective of development efforts is not merely aggregate growth but involves also the way in which such growth affects the lives of ordinary people, we are concerned that the development programmes with which we are associated should take place in an environment in which the benefits of growth are equitably distributed, and we are ready to assist as far as possible by encouraging and facilitating the development of such an environment.

The House will, of course, already be aware that Ireland does not provide military aid to developing countries. I nevertheless welcome the opportunity of emphasising that this will continue to be the case. I should also like to confirm that the approach followed in our own bilateral aid programme is the one we seek to encourage on the part of the large scale multilateral programmes with which we are connected, particularly those of the Community.

I welcome the fact that the motion deals with the current emergency situation in Africa and with the underlying problem of underdevelopment, for the link between the two is not always apparent. The reality is that harvest failures and adverse climatic trends do not result in famines except in underdeveloped countries. It follows that the solution to the problem must go beyond emergency measures and must address also the long term developmental requirements of the countries concerned. If this is not done, famines will be a recurring phenomenon, and probably to an increasing extent, at least in sub-Saharan Africa, since the developmental prospects of that region are now particularly gloomy, irrespective of the generosity of the response of developed countries after famines have arisen.

There is understandable public concern about the immediate and horrifying short-term consequences of the failure to meet the long-term development requirements of the developing world. But we must not lose sight of the long-term objective, which is to enable countries to feed their peoples and to fend for themselves. To maintain and extend the public understanding, when the present media attention has died down, is the fundamental challenge facing opinion-formers active in development today.

The current horrific famine in Ethiopia which threatens the lives of more than six million people — about one person in five of the total population — has, with the aid of the media, focussed the world's attention on the chronic and increasing problem of food deficits in Africa. The disastrous combination of drought, civil war, environmental degradation, population pressure and a stagnant agricultural sector has hit Ethiopia in an apocalyptic fashion, but Ethiopia is not by any means the only country to be threatened by such a deadly combination. Neighbouring Kenya and the Sudan are also severely affected, as are 20 other countries of sub-Saharan Africa. The food requirements of all of these countries will greatly exceed the available supply for months ahead, and as these countries simply do not have the resources to import food at market prices there will be a need for massive food aid contributions from the rest of the world — a massive 3.8 million tonnes according to recent estimates.

These problems are not new; the problem of food deficits in sub-Saharan Africa has been growing apace for the past two decades, and the danger signs have already appeared on several occasions with famines triggered by climatic failures appearing within countries and regions every few years. While Asia, though affected more by severe population pressures and urban poverty on a massive scale, has been forging ahead with significant increases in agricultural production, especially noticeable in countries such as India, Pakistan, Indonesia and in South-East Asia where improved seeds and methods have yielded great benefits, Africa's agriculture, affected by poor infrastructure, bad farming methods, lack of technology and essential inputs, and insufficient expertise as well as, in many cases — and I must say this — policy neglect by governments, has been losing ground badly.

Without stressing the question of policy neglect I was interested in the argument introduced by Senator Higgins in relation to the IMF. He will understand there are two viewpoints as to how one gives a considered reaction to the IMF approach. This approach normally consists of devaluation and encouraging an increase in agricultural prices. It also proposes a reduction in Government expenditure. That is the normal criterion. Is not one of the problems in Africa that there is insufficient encouragement for production by the farmers of Africa? It is fair to say that those ingredients of a normal IMF package could and probably would have the effect of stimulating agricultural production, admittedly at a cost to the urban population. Very often we have a situation where you have food subsidies in the towns and virtual subsistence prices for farmers. That combination does not provide the greatest encouragement for agricultural production. I merely mention it in passing, as it is obviously a subject which requires far more detailed analysis and discussion. When I see the situation in Africa I feel there must be a greater incentive by governments for more agricultural production in that part of the world.

Mr. M. Higgins

I would support Commissioner Pisani.

Mr. J. O'Keeffe

I will come to food strategies in a moment. Of course the agricultural sectors of some developing countries have also been adversely affected by external factors caused by, inter alia, the trade policies pursued by developed countries. Inadequate development assistance has also been a problem. Thus, it is becoming more and more evident that hunger will continue to be a characteristic of sub-Saharan Africa unless the correct measures, backed by aid from the international community, are adopted to stimulate greater food production in that region.

It is not enough for the rest of the world simply to react to televised horror pictures of human catastrophes which had their origins in events which happened several months ago, the root causes of which have been present for many years. Relief efforts are very urgently needed now, of course, and will continue to be needed for months and years to come but the situation will only begin to change through practical, long-term development assistance to the rural areas, accompanied by policies at the country and regional level which will favour increased food production and greater self-sufficiency for the rural poor.

Support for these development programmes must come in the main from the multilateral agencies and the major bilateral donors of aid. The EC has already taken significant steps in this direction through the initiation of its food strategy dialogue with a number of ACP countries.

The Community has of course also taken significant steps in response to the current emergency affecting Ethiopia and other African countries. In April last, when it began to become apparent that an exceptionally serious crisis was developing in a number of countries in Africa, the Community adopted an emergency plan which provided 80 million ECUs in addition to the moneys provided in the budget and the Lomé Convention for emergency relief. As time passed it became clear that the dimensions of the crisis were greater than had earlier been realised and that further actions were necessary. For this reason, having I may say, had advice from people who had seen the situation on the ground in Ethiopia I raised the matter on behalf of Ireland at the Foreign Affairs Council on 17 September. The Community was ready to respond, and in the recent past additional measures have been adopted involving 32 million ECUs, equivalent to about £23 million of emergency financial aid and 100,000 tonnes of cereals valued at 25 million ECUs, equivalent to about £18 million.

There is, of course, no reason for complacency or self-satisfaction. It is clear that the crisis will last for some time yet and that the requirements in a number of countries are very great. The Community's role must, therefore, be subject to constant critical reappraisal. The House can be assured that Ireland will play its full role in this process. Indeed, as the House will be aware, I will be going to Africa at the end of this week to review developments on the ground both in my capacity as Minister charged with particular responsibility for development in Ireland and as President of the Council of Development Ministers with a view to assessing what further actions may be necessary.

In so far as emergency financial aid from Ireland is concerned the Government have, in response to the serious food shortages and famine situations in Africa, allocated a total of £380,000 in 1984 for famine relief on this Continent. Earlier this year £30,000 was allocated from the Disaster Relief Fund through Christian Aid and the Irish Red Cross Society towards the purchase of transportation and emergency food supplies for the relief of Mozambican refugees in Zimbabwe. A grant of £40,000 was allocated to the Disaster Appeal Committee which involves several Irish non-Governmental organisations (NGOs) and which launched an African appeal earlier this year.

In view of the severity of the famine situation in Ethiopia £310,000 has been allocated from the Disaster Relief Fund in 1984 to assist famine victims in this country. In July, £20,000 was allocated to Christian Aid towards the purchase of trucks to distribute food supplies to victims of the drought in Eritrea and Tigre. Concern also received £20,000 to finance their emergency relief programme which operates feeding centres in Wollyata, in the Sidamo region of Southern Ethiopia. In September of this year, a grant of £20,000 was allocated to the Third World Self-Help Development Organisation towards the cost of shipping containers of food and other emergency supplies to Ethiopia.

On 25 October, in response to the deteriorating situation in Ethiopia, an additional £250,000 was transferred to the Disaster Relief Fund from other aid subheads. In view of the tremendous response of the public to the various appeals made on behalf of the famine stricken people of Ethiopia, these funds are being used mainly to cover the costs of transporting emergency supplies procured by various organisations to this afflicted country.

Approximately £45,000 was allocated to cover the cost of an airlift of 22 tonnes of emergency supplies organised by GOAL which left Dublin for Addis Ababa on 8 November. The Government have also been closely involved with the arrangements for two airlifts of emergency supplies sponsored by Guinness Peat Aviation, the first of which left Dublin on 31 October, 1984 and the second yesterday. In addition, the Government have had discussions with various non-Governmental organisations which will be involved in shipping to Ethiopia up to 1,500 tonnes of emergency supplies, including building materials, transportation, medical supplies, blankets, clothing and up to 750 tonnes of grain. The shipment will leave Dublin towards the end of this month and will be co-ordinated by Concern in co-operation with the other agencies involved mainly the Irish Farmers Association, Gorta, Action Aid, The Third World Self-Help Development Organisation and the Irish African Friendship Society. The cost of the shipment will be met by the Government and additional funds will be allocated to cover some of the costs of co-ordinating the distribution of the supplies in Ethiopia.

These funds provided by the Government are, of course, additional to the amounts very generously subscribed by the public to the Irish NGOs. It is not possible at this stage to provide an estimate of the amounts concerned as money is still pouring in but it certainly can be taken that the amount is very considerable indeed. I should, therefore, like to avail of this opportunity of saying how proud I am of the generosity of the public and of the invaluable role played by the non-Governmental organisations, the relief organisations and the other bodies who have tried to help in every way they can in meeting this crisis.

In our bilateral aid programme we have been conscious of the need to provide assistance to our principal partner countries. These are, of course, Lesotho, Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia in the agricultural sector, which in each of these countries is weak enough, though, at least in the case of some, if not all, capable of great potential. About 25 per cent of our bilateral aid goes to agriculture. We are ourselves a food-producing country, though this in itself, while it makes us conscious of the need to promote agriculture and rural development, does not automatically give us the resources or know-how to solve the problems of African countries which are very different climatically, ecologically and otherwise to our own. One particular sector in which we have an advantage, dairying, is not suitable for every area of Africa, but we have attempted to put our know-how in this sector to good use in projects in the Sudan, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, while in Lesotho and the Sudan we have made use of our strength in developing producer and marketing co-operatives in agricultural development schemes using extension services and expert advice to improve production of crops and forage.

It is vital that the long-term problems inhibiting improvement of food production in Africa be studied, and improved methods of land-use and technology developed to overcome these. For this reason pilot projects and agricultural research are very important especially since the improvements in Asia can largely be attributed to break-throughs applied in a widespread manner. We are supporting a number of schemes of this nature. One such notable scheme in Africa is a highland dairy research programme with the International Livestock Centre in Africa based in Ethiopia. We are also supporting applied research programmes designed to effect improvements in the production of potatoes, maize and wheat in other international research centres in which Irish scientists or technologists are working on programmes designed to assist the countries of the Third World. Water is often the key not only to agricultural improvement, but to health and control of the environment. Through training programmes both here in Ireland and in Tanzania, as well as in research projects to be undertaken in a number of developing countries, we are assisting developing countries to become able to manage their own water resources.

There is much more that we could do in-this area, utilising both our own national resources of willing personnel, experience, and know-how and combining our efforts with the major aid agencies and the increases in our bilateral aid programme which will be permitted by an expanded official development assistance contribution provided for in the National Plan Building on Reality will be put to use in this direction.

The House will be already aware that our aid figure has increased considerably in recent years. I recall that in 1981, when I first took up my appointment, the figure was £18.8 million. It is this year £34 million. In accordance with the national plan it will grow to about £50 million in 1987. It goes without saying — I have never hidden the fact — that my personal preference would be for greater increases. Nevertheless, it is not unreasonable to record some degree of satisfaction with the increases achieved and provided for against a background of international trends that show stagnating and even decreasing development assistance by donors generally.

Mr. M. Higgins

Our offer is to enable us to be a singular exception and our political support for that.

Mr. J. O'Keeffe

The figure has grown from £18 million in 1981 to £50 million in 1987. I have never made a secret of the fact that I wish for more. This is a progression from which we can take some satisfaction. This expanded programme will also include increased encouragement for, and collaboration with, the voluntary agencies such as Trocaire, Concern and Gorta who are active, especially at village level in the rural areas, in attacking the manifestations of poverty and rural stagnation, through schemes for co-financing of small-scale projects and sponsorship of volunteer personnel — agriculturalists, engineers, doctors, nurses and teachers.

I never fail to take the opportunity of pointing out my particular interest in the area of co-financing. It is an area which I have had the opportunity of increasing support for over the years. I should like to make it clear that it is my intention, as far as I can, to continue this increase in the co-financing area. The work that can be done at local level reaching the poorest of the poor under the schemes undertaken by the voluntary agencies, by our missionaries and by the other people with whom we work with on a co-financing basis, is incredibly good and is absolutely cost effective. The effect of the efforts of our dedicated and competent Irish personnel, whether expert consultants or managers or volunteer community workers or educators, can be enormous in transforming the potential for development of an area or an enterprise. Technical assistance — the transfer of capability through expert help and training — will continue to be the central element in our programmes to help the developing countries to help themselves.

It would not be true to assume that the African countries are not themselves very conscious of the need to improve the food situation within their countries in the long term. One very positive example of this is the priority given to food security programmes in the context of the Southern African Development Conference, an internationally-supported mutual self-help grouping consisting of nine countries of Eastern and Southern Africa, including three of our priority countries. Ireland has already begun to assist one SADCC project in the food security sector which involves the drawing up of a detailed inventory of the agricultural resource base in the region. During the SADCC conference which took place in Lusaka last spring, I pledged Irish support for the SADCC food security programme, which will provide a basis for rectifying the chronic problem of food deficits in that region.

This is an appropriate note on which to conclude by emphasising again that the objective of Ireland's development policy is to reinforce the efforts of developing countries to bring about their own development. There is not a strategic objective except to the extent that development in the Third World is helpful to the maintenance of international peace and stability. The overriding consideration at all times is the requirement of the developing countries concerned rather than any political considerations.

As regards the type of aid provided the main criterion is that it should be genuinely helpful to the countries concerned. This means, inter alia, that the underlying causes of underdevelopment must be addressed as well as its symptoms such as famines. The Government are hopeful that the public will appreciate the need for attention to the problem at both of these levels and that support will be forthcoming for appropriate programmes towards this end.

Mr. Killilea

I must say at the very beginning that earlier in the day when I first noticed the——

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I wonder if the Leader of the House could indicate to me what the business of the rest of the evening is?

Professor Dooge

We agreed to continue this debate until 6.30 p.m. and then to take item No. 2.

Mr. Killilea

As I was saying, earlier today when I first saw this particular motion on the agenda for the debate this evening I remarked at first reading that I thought it was couched in very convoluted phraseology and I thought simple wording would have been far better. However, after listening to Senator Michael D. Higgins's wonderful contribution this evening I now completely understand the reasons why this phraseology has been used. As spokesman for Fianna Fáil I must lend my support in one broad statement and say that we appreciate and compliment all the organisations, from the largest to the smallest, the school-children who stood on cold evenings at road junctions to gather money, in order to make the Irish contribution to the Ethiopian famine project such a success.

Wonderful work was done by all of them, including the small school-children who lent their support in a most fantastic manner. I must also compliment the Minister present here this evening on his own rapid action in arranging and getting out the first air flight to Ethiopia. It was indeed an example of the Irish attitude to such a situation. Listening to the debate this evening I think we must now harness this goodwill and anxiety of the Irish people to make a contribution to the underdeveloped world. Over the years we have helped in many spheres, in education and missionary work. We all remember putting pennies in the black baby box. Little did we understand then the reasons why that was necessary but now we do. The Irish people have given tremendous encouragement now to the Government and to the Minister here this evening in particular to harness this goodwill and to bring it to a very fruitful conclusion. It would be preposterous of any Minister not to harness it, and I think that the onus lies upon him.

I appreciate and accept the Leader of the House's goodwill towards us to have a very broad debate on this issue as early as possible in January. I would like to impress upon the Minister that we would like the earliest opportunity in January to have a very broad debate on this issue, because this motion this evening confines us in time but most importantly to the specifics enshrined in it. The point raised by Senator Michael Higgins about a comprehensive development policy as item I on this agenda arising out of this motion is particularly important. I am rather disappointed that the Minister, Deputy O'Keeffe, did not respond more positively to that request. I am sure that after digesting the speeches he will probably put it together a bit better for us in January at the broader debate.

This matter is not new to us. I have been privileged to have been a member of the Council of Europe and we have debated this question of famine relief, of relief in general and of a comprehensive policy towards this relief by not alone the ten nations of Europe but the 21 nations of Europe enshrined within the Council of Europe. We discussed last April, which is a long time ago now, that we should have a comprehensive policy on development in relation to Ethiopia. We are not in the arms race, as the Minister rightly said, and we eliminate that straight away so then we get down to the development policy. I was on the Council of Europe Agricultural Committee. When discussing surpluses we agreed that the development policy should be divided into two different areas, that is the outer Sahara regions of Sudan and Ethiopia and Chad and all the other nations mentioned, and that there were some which needed educational and development policy. I agree there are some which are incapable of ever growing their own food.

At our joint committee meeting yesterday evening I brought that issue up again and I want to reiterate it here now. Predictions can and must be made as a fundamental basis for any constructive policy that we want to bring forward in the areas of development and education and while we can play a role there I do not think it is the one to which we should turn our attention, but rather take it from the other hand. There are those misfortunate nations who for geographical reasons and for reasons of rains and waters and growth problems are not able to produce their own food. We should decide now on exactly who they are. We should face the fact that for the foreseeable future, for at least 100 years, they will not be self-sufficient in food. We would be as well off now to state this and produce food in this country or indeed in any other country that wishes and give it to them, because it is unrealistic to ask them to try, at an unreasonable cost, to produce food that obviously is not a balanced ration and at the end of the day it is so costly for them to produce that their efforts would probably be better directed in another way. If we are going to set up a comprehensive development policy we must look at the fundamentals first. We could talk for ever here about it.

There are countries, of course, and Ethiopia is one of them, where if a proper development and educational policy were brought to those regions, they could produce food in greater quantities and with a far higher protein content and more suitable to the digestive systems of the people of those nations. In the other ones, and I specifically speak about Sudan, I think it is ridiculous for us to waste money, time and energy in asking them to grow a crop which is impossible for their climatic conditions to produce. Ireland is a nation which has I think the greatest surpluses of food and the ability to produce even more surpluses of food than any other nation in Europe. All we have to do is look at the situation in regard to the surpluses in milk, in cheese, in beef, in lamb, in potatoes and in grain where this year we have had a bumper crop and an excess quantity of it. We can look at sugar and the products of sugar and the protein power of sugar. We are now in the situation where we have an excess sugar production. One would not believe it two or three years ago when there were many motions in this House regarding, for example, the situation appertaining in my district and the district of Senator Michael Higgins where we were unable to get the raw material to produce enough sugar. Now we are oversupplied. That over-supply should be harnessed.

I would appreciate it if the Minister would look at this aspect of it in view of this nation being so capable of producing surpluses. It is not often I compliment the media but I must compliment the media on this occasion on the manner in which they brought to our attention the horrifying situation in Ethiopia. It was a BBC programme which first highlighted it, but our own national press have helped in every way to appeal to the generosity of the Irish people and to explain to them the difficult circumstances that prevail there.

I would like to explain to the media the complications of our situation as regards surpluses and the manner in which the EC could release the food mountain in intervention. There seems to be an enormous amount of red tape and an enormous cost included in the release of food in intervention which would relieve the famine in Ethiopia. Further investigation should be made by us as Parliamentarians and as responsible elected representatives to encourage the EC to find some way to release this food. It is a horrendous situation where we have mountains of butter, beef and milk decaying in stores throughout Europe and the people of Africa dying of hunger. A complicated system is in operation where we cannot release some of the food.

We have, as a nation, a role to play. I would like to take up a point made by Senator Michael Higgins about Nicaragua and the economic destabilisation of that country. There may be political overtones in what the IMF are doing in Nicaragua. I do not know much about it. But I know of another situation familiar in its economic destabilisation programme but unfamiliar from the political point of view. I am speaking of Turkey where the opposite is happening. There is an economic destabilisation programme going on there for political reasons. Efforts to destabilise there are being pushed strongly by the friends of Russia, of Iran and Iraq and the kindly neighbours they have.

After a recent earthquake in that country we have seen the poverty there where the mud houses fell on top of people and suffocated them even though the earthquake was so weak we would not even feel it in this country. There is poverty and destabilisation going on throughout the world. Senator Michael Higgins put his case on Nicaragua very eloquently. If one could have the same time as he had one could make it about other nations too. We in the Common Market and in the Presidency of the EC at this time should move to stop this destabilisation immaterial of whether they are Marxists, whether they are extreme right, whether they are communists or whether they are extreme conservatives. The Irish people should take into account the suffering of human beings.

Yesterday evening at our joint meeting of the aid and development committee we made a unanimous decision that immaterial of who the government of the particular country were, if there was such extreme hardship to people, we should directly get the aid to them. That was a wonderful decision by the joint committee, and it has laid down the foundations of what the Irish people should do.

Speaking of the joint committee, I requested yesterday, and I do not know whether it is outside the terms of reference of it, that when we sit down to talk about a new comprehensive development policy we should have from now on deliberations with comparable committees in the EC and in the Council of Europe so that they can get our opinion and we can get theirs. We should be working towards that. We are talking about elected representatives of three different Parliaments. There should be some cohesion between them.

While I might not agree with Senator Michael Higgins' basic political philosophy, as regards his contribution not alone to the debate here this evening but his contribution for many months and years towards such motions as this one, he is a remarkable man. His contributions have always been remarkable. It is fitting that a man who has tried to do so much to help down-trodden people should be complimented and I should like to do so now.

Professor Dooge

I am happy to support this motion which was put down by the Labour Party group. It asks us to do three things. It asks us to take three attitudes in relation to aid. It asks us to advocate a policy towards developing countries that excludes military aid for oppressive regimes. It asks us to support, at home and internationally, policies towards developing countries that do not involve structural disadvantages for them and it calls for a statement in regard to the present famine in Africa.

I am happy to be able to support this motion on all three of these grounds. The motion says that aid programmes directed towards developing countries should exclude military aid for oppressive regimes as a principle. I believe they should exclude military aid simpliciter and that what may be a benign regime today can become an oppressive regime tomorrow and what appears to be a country firmly founded in democracy today can have its government overturned tomorrow. The only safe policy in regard to development aid is that military aid should be excluded. I am happy that this has always been the attitude of Irish Governments and I am happy that here this evening the Minister of State has given a guarantee that that will continue to be our policy.

In regard to the question that aid should not involve structural disadvantages for the receipient country, we in this country have nothing to be ashamed of. Our development aid has been disinterested in contrast to the development aid of some countries of the developed world. Aid, if is it really to be of assistance, must be positive aid in the fullest sense of the word. It must be aid that promotes self-sustaining development. Not only should this happen but it should be aid of such a type that it does not create any artificial demand for nonessential goods or any similar effect. Our record is a good one.

Senator Killilea suggested that the Minister of State had not responded to the request from Senator Michael Higgins, the proposer of the motion, for a statement in regard to a comprehensive aid policy. The Minister of State did mention that a policy paper on development is now well advanced. An indication was given that the request from Senator Michael Higgins for a statement on comprehensive strategy will be met in the policy document. All of us, and I am sure Senator Higgins would agree, while we would like to see this document as early as possible, we want to see it fully worked out. We want to see a development policy that has been fully worked out. We look forward to this policy paper. We would all be glad if that policy paper were available before we have our debate early in the New Year. This would make an excellent background to the more general debate which we intend to hold.

In regard to the position in Africa, we must thank the Minister of State for the good description he has given us of the efforts being made, both governmentally and non-governmentally in regard to our reaction to the situation in Africa and in Ethiopia in particular. I would like to reecho what he said about the necessity for a sustained effort, of the necessity after this disaster has been replaced on the television screens by other disasters and later when the peak of this disaster is over, not to forget the plight of Ethiopia and the plight of other countries in Africa. We should all give support to the continuing efforts in this regard.

The problem that now afflicts Africa is fundamentally a problem that is going to continue to afflict Africa. The problem of drought in Africa will not be solved either by doctors making rain dances or by highly commercial gentlemen guaranteeing that they can produce rain for a considerable sum of money. Both those approaches will not lead anywhere. Almost half the land of Africa is limited in its production potential for agriculture by recurring drought. This is a situation that cannot be changed. Africa has almost as much rainfall as Europe. The rainfall in Africa is approximately 90 per cent of that in Europe. Because of its situation, the evaporation in Africa is much greater. Consequently the amount of water available as run off in Africa is less than half of that in Europe. Therefore, Africa faces a continual problem in regard to water.

The present severe condition has resulted from a number of factors. The Minister pointed these out in his intervention here this evening. There is no need for me to repeat them. But one of the problems which has faced Africa in the drought years of the early eighties has been the failure of agricultural production, even to keep pace with the population rise in Africa. Throughout the seventies the amount of food produced in Africa per head fell by 10 per cent. Africa came into the eighties on a declining agricultural production. The cultivated land in some countries in Africa in the last few years has fallen to half its previous value. The herds in many African countries has fallen to one-third. In Mozambique it is said that over 100,000 cattle have died.

Our reaction to this — and a very proper reaction — is to send immediate short-term relief. But we must do more. We must do more in the medium and longer term. In this regard I want to indicate that the African people would wish that we in the developing countries would take this longer-term attitude. The Economic Commission for Africa, a U.N. organisation, comprising all the African states, has itself drawn up a Plan of Action in regard to drought. I was privileged to have taken part in preparatory meetings and in the final meeting in Addis Ababa at which this Plan of Action was drawn up. I would like to quote something said in that Plan of Action in regard to short-term relief. It said that relief is necessary in the short term, for 1984 and 1985. But they ask for relief in such a form and I quote:

Not to be such that it would act as a disincentive to local production when this becomes possible.

So what Africa is asking for is immediate aid. But it asks for something else as well. It asks that we should, in the immediate post-emergency period, continue by providing seed, fertilizer, tools, vaccines, so that local production can be revitalised. Africa does not want to live on charity. Africa wants to stand on its own feet. Our job is to help them to do so.

One of the problems in regard to this question of trying to avoid what has happened is the establishment — again this is part of the African Plan of Action — of early warning systems. We now have famine in many parts of Africa, but this is the end of a long chain, the chain of meteorological drought, followed by hydrological drought, followed by the agricultural drought which results in the loss of harvests. One of the tragedies of Africa today, and of previous disaster areas, is that international aid has not been initiated soon enough. International interest has not been aroused until we reached the situation of crop failure and human starvation. One of the things that the African countries are trying to do and that we must help them to do, is to establish proper early warning systems. One of the tragedies of the past three or four years in Africa is that in their attempts to provide relief nationally and to find funds elsewhere to do this, one of the things that has suffered has been their national climate stations. We find that the data which could establish these early warning systems have been run down as an economy measure. Africa has now seen the error of that and is prepared to take the longer view.

In the medium term we must help to produce improvements in agricultural policy. We must help in the development of conservation policies, we must help in regard to data collection and research. We must help the African countries in their manpower, planning and development.

Here again it is quite clear from the account the Minister has given us that we have a good record in this, that already our own development programme is taking a medium-term view. The projects which are being supported governmentally or by our non-governmental organisations and the projects in which the Minister takes a special interest, those which are co-financed, have been projects well selected and well designed to promote self-help by the Africans. In education and training we have also done our part. I personally am very happy to be associated with the programme in University College, Galway, for the training of people in engineering hydrology, where every year 20 to 25 students from developing countries are trained.

In the longer term we must also be able to help. Here there are already signs that the African countries are realising that all of their national planning must be adapted. Our national planning must also be adapted so that we can help them. Let us not stint ourselves in regard to the immediate aid which is so desperately needed but let us not stop at that. Let us go beyond that. It is not possible to draw on the generosity of people year after year to the extent that they have responded in recent weeks and months. I think the Government must on their behalf make a contribution as large as they can to the medium-term and the long-term development because if this is not done Africa will not be helped to help herself. The African countries and the African region are prepared to do this but they can only do that with our help. If we do not make the response in this regard then what we have seen on our screens in recent weeks and what has affected us so much will recur. There is absolutely no doubt that the drought will recur in Africa. It is our job in combination with the peoples of Africa themselves to ensure that the recurrence of drought does not necessarily mean also the recurrence of famine.

Mr. McDonald

I rise to support this motion and I certainly welcome the Minister of State's reassurances on the positive approach not only of his own Department and our Government but of the EC as well. It is heartening to find that in our own country, once our people were awakened to the horror of the present crisis they have responded so generously to the very many appeals that were made on behalf of various agencies working in Africa and especially in Ethiopia. It is true to say that of the 52 African countries almost half of them are having difficulties in feeding their own population at present. We must remember that when we look at the make-up of the governments in the various countries we are inclined as Irish people and Europeans, to look at them and to compare them as though they were Europeans and that they had the same opportunities as we and other European countries had. This is a mistake.

As far back as 1973 I had the opportunity of working as a member of the old Assembly of the Associated African States in Madagascar. It was the forerunner of the ACP and that was established in 1969. At the first meeting I attended as a Member of the European Parliament the problem of famine in Ethiopia was high on the agenda. Over the years there have been difficulties in feeding populations in many of the African countries. I remember while serving on the Commission for Development and Aid coming up against the problem, for example, of Uganda when that African country, having as leader President Amin — who by any standards was obnoxious to civilised people — and whether or not the Community should aid people there despite the fact that the Government and the leadership were completely at variance with thoughts that we might have had. That is one of the problems of Africa. I would like to make a special appeal to the Minister of State this evening to have a special regard for the country of Chad, definitely one of the poorest countries in Africa. It has less control over its own affairs because it is landlocked and in addition its surrounding neighbours, Libya, Sudan, the Central African Republic, Niger, the Cameroons — almost all of them have closed their borders. Here you have an absolutely undeveloped country. They have had famine in their mountainous districts for very many years. There is no hope of getting aid to them. From our point of view one of the difficulties in meeting the representatives of Chad is that it is a Francophobe country but nevertheless they always appear to me as being very quiet, moderate people, but obviously in Africa the situation is that people have no great regard for what happens outside; they are all preoccupied with the problems within their own borders, and if people are starving across the border it does not appear to be of any great import to another country.

I was horrified last night listening to an interview on the BBC to hear an African minister denying to a BBC correspondent that there was any difficulty or crisis in his country. This is indicative of the problems that face the EEC and indeed all agencies that strive to help in situations like this where the government do not want to know, where people, especially those who form nomadic tribes are very often not looked on as being part of the responsibility of government as we recognise governments and look on governments. I would hope that the Minister and especially the EEC would endeavour to find a way of surmounting that problem. It is important, as Senator Dooge has said, that we must not just respond to a crisis at the height of a crisis but we must certainly assist the development of as many underdeveloped countries as possible so as to assist them to provide food and shelter for their own population.

I would like to avail of this opportunity to say that so many people throughout the country continually ask why the EC cannot use up their mountains of surplus foods such as milk, butter, beef, grain, wine and so on. The Minister did not mention this in his speech, but nevertheless in the EC Developmental Aid originally in this years' budget provided in excess of £3 billion for development through the ACP. The Minister did indicate the additional sums that were provided. It is difficult to monitor exactly how much that would do when you look at a crisis. Nevertheless, the kind of investment in the development of the infrastructures that all of the undeveloped countries require must be an ongoing process.

I would appeal to people not just to respond in the generous fashion in which they are responding to the present crisis, as from an Irish point of view in Ethiopia, but to have it as an ongoing contribution to the wonderful organisations and religious communities that have over the years done so much to relieve suffering and hardship. I would like to pay a compliment to Fathers Michael and Kevin Doheny whose film clip on the BBC triggered the chain of events that has awakened the conscience of not only this country but the UK and America. Those missionaries have spent a quarter of a centurey working and living in those conditions. Father Doherty returned to Ethiopia last month, but in September he told me of the horror of the situation that is in Ethiopia at the present time. He—— present time. He——

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Sorry for interrupting, but there is a Vote in the other House. Would the Senator like to continue?

Mr. McDonald

I will continue. He was counting the days until his film could be processed and shown so as to get more people into the effort of bringing some relief. I know that these agencies on their own cannot fully ease the horror that is in Ethiopia. Senator Higgins in one of these fine speeches stressed and advocated more aid for economic recovery. I do not wish to correct the Senator but the emphasis I believe must be a gigantic one, a gigantic effort to introduce effective planning and technology to organise in some way food resources for the rising population in all the underdeveloped countries.

The Government in increasing, as they have, the development aid budget, on the last occasion had the opportunity to take the right road. A higher percentage of the moneys that are allocated this year should be channelled if at all possible through our voluntary organisations, whether it be Concern, Oxfam, Christian Aid or various missionary houses. Moneys handed to a missionary here returning to one of the developing countries for a project, whether it is a Cheshire-type home or it is a co-operative to develop agricultural industry or towards a school, will go in total towards the development of the project that the organiser or voluntary worker or missionary has in mind. I would ask the Minister of State, Deputy O'Keeffe, in whom I have the utmost confidence, to allocate a greater percentage out of our resources during the coming year to that side of his policy. It is very difficult for us to visualise the horror of the situation in Africa. Senator Dooge has given the House the benefit of his tremendous experience of the situation from his view of the climatic conditions, the problem of providing proper infrastructural facilities, and the hydrology. It is difficult for us to visualise the situation where we have so many eggs in the basket whereas most of the African countries are a one-crop economy or a one-item economy. If that fails it affects the entire economy of the country. While the ACP through their ordinary policies have endeavoured to ease the position in quite a number of situations by controlling the price of sugar or whatever, nevertheless it is difficult to visualise the impact especially if you have more than one element, such as a drop in the price on the international market coupled with a weather dimension. This is bringing great hardship on these people. I should just pay tribute to and be associated with the people who have been so unselfish in their efforts to do what they can do to help to alleviate the situation in Africa. We should gear ourselves to thinking of an ongoing contribution to the development of the Third World.

Mr. B. Ryan

Senator Robb and myself introduced a multi-faceted motion on neutrality some months ago, and in some ways this motion contains so much on so many different issues that even in the ten minutes or 15 that I have, one could actually end up talking about one issue and still go on forever. The basic principle that needs to be reiterated again and again on this whole area of aid programmes towards development is that, first of all, we are not talking about some sort of charitable munificence on our own behalf to other people. We are not talking about us feeling obsessed or perturbed or concerned because that great big body of the world out there does not have sufficient resources to live or to develop or to live with even the standards basic dignity requires. We are talking about the fact that there is a fundamental structural injustice in the way the world economic order has developed.

That structural injustice has a number of manifestations, the first being the change for the worse in the terms of trade of the last ten years, particularly represented in the change in the terms of trade for energy but in many other concerns as well, and the fact that the prices of most basic commodities produced by developing countries have dropped dramatically in real terms or particularly in terms of their capacity to purchase the necessary technology and technologically-related goods that they need for their own development.

The fact that the price of so many of their basic products has dropped has fundamentally shifted and increased the burden on developing countries. Secondly, the escalation in the value of the dollar, which is a major currency for international lending, and the frighteningly high level of international interest rates has imposed another burden over and beyond the burden that already existed on developing countries. Thirdly, there is the existence of various protective tariffs and devices, particularly in the area of primary products and of food. We have to say — it is neither politically wise nor politically practicable to say too much, nevertheless it would be dishonest not to — that among the major obstacles to the development of the production of food and of commodities for export is the Common Agricultural Policy. There are products — particularly sugar — that many developing countries can produce at a price way below the price at which they can be produced within the European Community but which we, by the structures of protection for agricultural production in the European Community, prevent them from developing, apart from political considerations which have excluded a major sugar producer like Cuba from the closest market to it. There are economic and tariff structures which have discriminated against developing countries.

All of these things are not some sort of accidents of a great big free market out there. They are the collective decisions of those who have benefited most from the inequalities in world trade and the inequality in the distribution of resources and power. They are those of us who have the good fortune to live in the developed world. It is one of the most unfortunate characteristics of western society as it has developed in recent times — and a characteristic that still continues notwithstanding the recent recession — that we describe ourselves as a world of increasing affluence. It is a very small part of the world that has increasing affluence. It is this proportionately decreasing minority who make up the developed West and a large part of the developed Eastern European States that are actually the affluent world. It is arguable that a considerable part of our affluence is not based — as we like to pretend — on our own ingenuity or our own hard work or our own capacity to produce efficiently or anything like that. It is based on the fact that we got there first and once we got there we took all the necessary steps to prevent anybody else getting there too, in terms of the way we define the terms of trade, in the way we have controlled the allocation of resources and in particular in the way we have protected our own interests all over. That is the underlying structural problem as most people would see it.

Proceeding from there, we look at what we can do about it. We can and we should give substantial aid. It is very welcome that this motion does identify the need to have a careful look at what aid is for and what aid does. Indeed, it is one of the criticisms that has been directed against the Department of Foreign Affairs Report on Overseas Development Aid and that the criteria by which the success of various programmes of aid are judged are far from clear. There are references all through the ODA report on how successful things have been, on the progress that has been made and similar things. But nowhere within that report do you have the kind of yardsticks by which those judgments are made. All the way through it is perception by the authors of the report without any objective criteria by which I or any other body could assess the success of those projects, criteria which would be susceptible to some sort of objective analysis, which is regrettable.

That is a simple criticism. A much more fundamental criticism is the fact that we have, as a community — all of us bear some responsibility — backed away from even the most minimal of commitment to development aid. Despite the extraordinarily low target of 0.7 per cent that the United Nations has set as the proportion of GNP to be devoted to development aid only a small number of countries have achieved that level of aid. We are not one of those countries and we are nowhere near becoming one of those countries. While I understand that the pressures of Government can bring about re-assessment of various priorities I think it is regrettable that both the present Government and its predecessor found it necessary to identify overseas development aid as one of the categories for cutbacks. As is identified, and as has been identified on a number of occasions, the total body of overseas development aid involves both multilateral and bilateral aid. The argument has been made very often that we do not deserve much credit for a large part of our multilateral aid because we have no option but to cough up that money because it is part of our international commitments. The only really discretionary element in our overseas development aid is our bilateral aid.

The motion identifies that aid should exclude military aid for oppressive regimes as a principle. I would take the view that the whole concept of aid programmes directed towards developing countries should exclude military aid to all regimes. There is a moral choice involved here. I cannot accept that there is some overwhelming economic need on the part of the Western and the Eastern European countries and on North America which makes us accept the concept of military aid as being in some way beneficial to Third World countries. It was during Senator Dooge's period as Minister for Foreign Affairs that he very promptly reminded me that part of the problem of the armaments race was the responsibility of developing countries themselves and their apparent willingness to spend enormous sums on armaments.

It is a fact that the world is coming close now to spending in the order of one million million dollars a year on armaments. Two years ago it was in the order of $650,000 million. I presume by now it is close to $800,000 million and one has to assume that in a couple of years it will be up to that staggering figure of one million million dollars per year being spent on armaments. It is the least adverted to but the most fundamental of all moral choices for the community at large, whether it is prepared to address realistically this problem of armaments development. The problem, as I noted about 12 months or 15 months ago, is that every country sees their own military expenditure as a very sacrosanct thing, that their own expenditure is simply for defence, and the problem is because everybody else is doing something wrong and that if the other fellow will be reasonable then of course we will be reasonable.

There is an obligation on countries that are as they stand — this is true of the western countries generally, adequately well defended, to use a rather ambivalent term since most of their weaponry is much more offensive than it is defensive — to begin to reduce their commitment to armaments expenditure, first of all as an instrument of defence policy and secondly as an instrument of economic development. It is true — notwithstanding propaganda to the contrary — that armaments expenditure is not a particularly useful method of economic development. Armaments expenditure is grossly inflationary because in a free market economy it does not have any of the normal criteria of a market of supply and demand and competition.

An Cathaoirleach

The Senator has two minutes.

Mr. B. Ryan

The armament issue is a central moral issue on development, because it is dishonest and immoral to pretend that there is a scarcity of resources for development in the world. There is not a scarcity of resources. The amount of expenditure on armaments would deal more than adequately with all the problems of development if it were allocated to development aid. Of the $650,000 million, or $700,000 million, or $800,000 million spent on armaments every year, two or three weeks' worth would provide most of the basic services for most of those in the world who are without.

It is not a question, even at this early stage, of our having to cut back dramatically the level of public consumption in the western economy, because the greater part of armament expenditure is still within the western and eastern bloc economies. The problem is the moral choice involved in choosing to do something about the armaments race. I welcome the motion. The principles involved in it are principles that this House as a body should accept. We are coming to a stage when we, as a community, will have to do more than express high-minded moral principles. We will have to take decisions in terms of the allocation of our own admittedly limited resources towards the objectives outlined in the motion.

Debate adjourned.