Senator Doyle has 30 minutes and each other Member has 15 minutes. There is an hour and a half to debate this motion tonight and three hours altogether.
Overseas Development Aid: Motion.
Acting Chairman (Mr. Kiely)
I move:
That Seanad Éireann condemns the Government's totally unjustifiable cutback in the current level of Overseas Development Aid and calls on the Government:
(i) To take immediate steps to increase the level of Government aid to 0.25 per cent of GNP as it was in 1987 and to aim at a target of 0.27 per cent of GNP in the reasonable future.
(ii) To reconstitute the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Development Aid.
(iii) To establish an Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs.
I welcome the opportunity to put this most important motion to the House this evening. Personally, I would add that the 0.7 per cent UN target should be achieved by the year 2000, if practicable at all. Secondly, we are calling on the Government to reconstitute the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Development Aid, either to stand alone or as a sub-group of an Oireachtas joint committee on foreign affairs or an Oireachtas joint committee on foreign policy. I will not fall out with the Minister on the exact terminology we use there. In relation to an Oireachtas joint committee on foreign affairs, I have on at least four, if not five, occasions in the last three or four months urged the Government to consider this request. It is an all-party request, a request from all sides of the House, and as each day passes the need for such a group becomes more obvious. You can look at any part of the world and look at the requests in debates. You have only to go back to the whole issue of the UN situation in relation to the vote on Cambodia not so long ago, the discussions both in Dáil and in this Chamber, and the views expressed then. I am glad that the Government changed their minds and rather than vote they abstained on that issue.
The Government did not change their minds.
I accept that correction, but the information this House had at the time, what we were speaking to, and which was not corrected by the speakers from the Fianna Fáil side, was that abstention was not the course we could expect. I accept that is what happened subsequently and I think it was the course that, given the circumstances, was best for this country to take.
We certainly did not infer that we were voting otherwise.
I am referring to the debate both in the Dáil and in the Seanad and I refer the Senator to all the speakers, to no one in particular. The Senator did make an extremely good contribution but there were many contributions in that very important debate. The point I am making is that a forum such as this or the Dáil, is not the ideal place to tease out Irish foreign policy. We should not be firing bits and pieces of policy back and forward across Chambers and even scoring political points on occasions, which has happened, and I am not going to pretend I am lily white in relation to any of that. It is the way we are structured in these Houses and it is the way these issues get debated. I feel this is most inappropriate.
Week after week we come in here. We want debates on the Middle East, on the issues in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Nicaragua and on US foreign policy. Everyone can pick the issue they are fired about. We should have an all-party forum where we can have an Irish policy hammered out and all go forward together representing abroad the Irish views on these different issues. I do not think that needs further development. I think it should be patently obvious that there is an all-party appeal to the Minister, and through him to the Cabinet, to concede on this most important issue.
The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Development Aid did wonderful work. There have been calls from inside this House and outside it, from the NGOs and from different organisations, to reconstitute this committee which did such good work. There could either be a formal sub-committee of an Oireachtas joint committee on foreign affairs or an Oireachtas joint committee on foreign policy, or it could stand alone as its own joint committee. It did wonderful work on its own previously, but we need a commitment from the Minister in relation to a foreign affairs committee and/or committee on development aid as a sub-committee of the foreign affairs committee. I eagerly await the Minister's response to those points.
If I may turn now to point No. (i) as the motion is tabled and that is the embarrassment, if you like, that is being caused to all of us in relation to our present level of overseas development aid. Regardless of past records our present and proposed levels of overseas development aid have to be a major source of embarrassment to us all, regardless of our political affiliation.
At a time when developing countries' debt repayments far exceed all the aid they are receiving, and at a time when 40,000 children still die unnecessarily per day, at a time when one-tenth of the world population, 500 million people, are still chronically hungry, we can only look to ourselves and to our problems and say, "Sorry we are going to slash what we give you in relation to overseas development aid. Sorry, we cannot live up to the promises we made." There is, to be fair, a litany of broken promises of consecutive Governments in this area. This debate could be entitled "a history of broken promises". None of us, on either side of the House, can get up and say that our records are clean or that we have not broken promises at some stage along the road in relation to Ireland's overseas development aid generally.
As we address ourselves to the motion before us this evening, we have to ask whether as a nation we have forgotten that we in Ireland suffered, only a century or so ago, the same fate as the hungry nations of today. In fact, we had typical Third World conditions until the 1940s in this country — dispossession, poverty and emigration, mainly resulting from the Great Famine era. Aid can be and is seen as an indicator of our concern as a nation. Our overseas development aid is decided by Governments not by the people and that is why it does not reflect the wishes of the people generally or our history of commitment as a nation.
I want to turn to a few points if I may which are expressed far more articulately than I would be able to express them and I do not apologise for quoting or plagiarising or referring to speeches or contributions or commitments in this area given by outside bodies and, indeed, in this Chamber and in the Dáil over the years.
In the past in Ireland we have had well-documented the history of evangelisation and education worldwide since 500 AD. It has been pointed out that we got the name of being the island of saints and scholars. We did not keep that to ourselves here, our missionaries and our educators travelled abroad far and wide. We have had direct involvement in liberation struggles over the years. Let us remind ourselves of the Wild Geese in Europe, Bernardo O'Higgins in South America, the Fenians in the American War of Independence, de Valera's influence on Gandhi and Nehru in India, Seán MacBride's efforts in Namibia, acknowledged by the award of a Nobel prize and a Lenin peace prize.
Let us remind ourselves of the Irish emigrants involvement in nation building over the years: the Kennedys in the States and many others. Twenty thousand of our missionaries have been active in development and pastoral works overseas since the last century. They have had tremendous influence on emerging leaders — Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and Tanzania's Julius Nyerere, to name but two. There were key contributions from Ireland in the formation of the League of Nations and the subsequent growth of the United Nations. More recently there has been the Irish Army's peace-keeping record in the Congo, Cyprus and in Lebanon. We have been unprecedently generous as a nation in our response to disaster and famine in Biafra, Kampuchea, Ethiopia. We can think of Bob Geldof's Band Aid and Live Aid, remind ourselves of the emergence in growth of the relief and development agencies — Concern, Gorta, Trócaire and GOAL. There has been unselfish service from thousands of Irish volunteers in the Third World. There was growth in the Irish Government's official development assistance from approximately £1 million in the early 1970s to over £43 million in 1987. There have been public commitments by Irish Government Ministers in their time — Deputy O'Kennedy, Deputy Garret FitzGerald and Deputy O'Keeffe — to increasing Irish aid towards the UN target of 0.7 per cent of GNP. There has been significant assistance by our semi-State and State agencies and private sector companies too, to developing countries — CIE, Aer Lingus and the ESB. We have been the net beneficiaries in most of these development aid programmes and we must recognise that and quantify it if we can.
In 1985 there was a major public opinion survey carried out which found that 83 per cent of Irish people favoured the maintenance or the increase of Irish aid to the Third World. Looking at our history, recent and past, and at the views of the Irish people——
Acting Chairman
There is a division in the Dáil.
I have reported to the Whips' office that I am here.
We have an arrangement now whereby there is automatic pairing for any Minister present in this House.
I would not say there is automatic pairing, Senator.
It was agreed by the Whips that the business of this House would not be interrupted, that pairing would be allowed for the Minister in this House — one of the reforms that we are glad to say has been introduced in this session.
Pity it was not there on 31 January.
I was just reminding the Minister, with respect, of our recent past and previous commitment in this area and that the level of Government expenditure today on ODA does not reflect the wishes of the Irish people. We should not have to go any further than that. The Government should immediately redress the problem that is there and answer the wishes of the people. Our non-governmental organisations, mainly Concern, Trócaire and GOAL, collect and distribute per annum as much in the Third World as the entire official bilateral assistance programme of this country. The ratio of commitment from the NGOs to the Government in this country far exceeds that of any other OECD country. Perhaps we should remind ourselves of how we define Ireland's development effort generally at this stage.
Irish overseas development aid is the money allocated annually in the budget by the Government to aid developing countries. In 1987 approximately 60 per cent of the total was multilateral aid and 40 per cent bilateral assistance. Multilateral aid is the money which Ireland has to pay to the international bodies such as the UN agencies, the World Bank and the European Communities Development Fund. Most of our bilateral assistance is spent on personal projects and technical assistance which goes directly to a number of Third World countries. As well as the official Government aid programme, a number of the NGOs give substantial development assistance. There are also Church and missionary organisations and religious orders together with a variety of other agencies which have a combined total of over 3,000 personnel involved in development work overseas. There is no doubt that that is a good record in terms of a commitment from a small nation such as ours, from a relatively underdeveloped nation.
In terms of the OECD structure, we are 57th of the 160 richest nations in the world but, at the moment, we are preoccupied with our own debt-servicing crisis. That has been used rather lamely as the excuse for not honouring our commitments over the years. It is not just this year or last year, even though the reduction this year and last year has been particularly horrific, but over the years we have not honoured the promises that were given, going back to 1973 and 1874. Deputy Garret FitzGerald has a very honourable record in this area but even some of the promises he committed us to have yet to be honoured. We are awaiting a White Paper on policy in this area since 1974 or 1975. Fifteen or 16 years later, to my knowledge, it has not appeared. I do not know if it is being prepared or is at any draft stage. I await to be told by the Minister whether something is arising in relation to that.
While our record of achievement in the cause of human development worldwide — I listed some of the areas briefly where we have had a good record in the past — is something we can be proud of, like other OECD countries we are now preoccupied with recession and unemployment and coping generally with the servicing of our international debt. This was the legacy of the massive borrowing by us as an oil-importing nation during the oil crisis, among other issues, but that was a major compounding factor of our debt problem.
We must ask ourselves whether we have lost all sense of global perspective on this issue, whether the whole concept of the global village means anything. Yes, we have problems, they have been well documented. We have economic and political problems, we have spoken of them on other occasions and we know what they are. Relative to what we have been asked to do as a member of OECD, as a member of the EC, recognising the huge grant assistance which, as a nation, we get from the EC, considering the hype we have had about the doubling of the Structural Funds to ensure that Ireland is not on the periphery of the EC Twelve post-1992, then when one looks at the amount of money we are now discussing and urging the Government to increase its contribution to overseas development aid relative to the type of money we are expecting from the EC and the Structural Funds over the next four years, what we are now looking for pales into insignificance.
While we introvertedly look, discuss and bemoan our economic and political domestic problems, many developing countries have lost more than a full decade of growth. The effects of the debt crisis will linger for them for a lifetime at least, even if income grows more rapidly in those countries in the future. By 1988 the combined GDP of the highly indebted developing countries was 10 per cent lower than in 1980. It had decreased to about 33 per cent below the level that it would have reached had the 1965 to 1980 growth trend continued through to 1988 in these developing countries. We have problems but tragically for the developing world their problems have been magnified and multiplied at a far greater rate over the last decade, particularly the servicing of their debt repayments, than anything in this country. Our problems pale into insignificance.
For Sub-Saharan Africa the 1980s brought even greater hardship. Their per capita income in 1988 was 19 per cent lower than in 1980 with little prospect for improvement. Even with an impressive 4.5 per cent annual growth rate not until the year 2077 would debtor countries reach the per capita income level that they would have acheved if the growth rates of the sixties and seventies had continued in the eighties. In short, the 1980s has been a disastrous decade for developing countries. With debt and recession in the eighties, the advances in human wellbeing in these developing countries, such as the reduction in child mortality rates, slowed considerably. The Third World debt crisis has entered a new stage.
When we agreed, back in the seventies, to a target of 0.7 per cent of GNP as our ODA, as a relatively developed nation we had not even reached this tragic decade for the developing countries. If we were being honest and if we were treating like with like, and if we were now to consider in 1990 what we should be contributing in ODA that would be equivalent to 0.7 per cent in 1980 we should be asking for somewhere in the region of 2 to 3 per cent of GNP. We are realists: that is not going to be achieved today or tomorrow. I would like some indication from the Minister as to when the 0.7 per cent target set in 1973-74 will be achieved. It was asked to be delivered on by 1975 and for those countries that had "problems", they were given until 1980 to reach the 0.7 per cent of GNP as ODA. Here we are, a decade later, with the developing countries in crisis because of the debt repayment problems that have beset them since and in fact, we have reduced dramatically what we have been giving them over the past two years.
We hardly need to remind ourselves that the seeds of the Third World debt crisis were planted in the 1970s after we had struck the target of 0.7 per cent at UN level for ODA contribution. The oil price shocks led to increased loans to developing countries as petro-dollars were recycled, and eventually to high interest rates, as the industrial countries tried to stem inflation. By the early 1980s, developing countries had accumulated a mountain of debt in an effort to maintain and surpass their rapid growth of the 1960s and 1970s.
The crisis for most debtor countries erupted around 1982 when the world economic recession closed down previously strong markets for their goods. I am tempted to quote an expression I heard on a BBC2 programme during the week on developing countries generally when it stated that the developing countries had swopped the tyranny of imperialism — we are particularly talking about Sub-Saharan Africa in this context — for the tyranny of the world marketplace. That says it all in a nutshell.
They are really crippled by the situation in the world marketplace and apart from that because of their urgent need for cash crops to repay their debts, they are now planting areas which should be growing food and areas which should be grazed with cash crops such as cotton etc. and hunger is increasing in their own areas. There is a reduction in their own GNP contribution towards health and education and indeed the development of fresh water systems for drinking has slowed down at an enormous rate in the 1980s relative to the 1960s and 1970s.
These are all indicators that are used for the various international agencies. UNICEF, particularly, have year after year published very important documents which are really tantamount to gospel in this area, in that the work is done. They quantify in a detailed and scientific way what the problems are and anything we say or any excuses we make here in relation to our lack of commitment or contribution to those countries fly out the window when one reads through the facts and figures of the organisations and agencies who know in detail what they are talking about.
I hope we can count on the Progressive Democrats support for this motion. I hope we can count on the Government's support. I have no indication at this stage what the Minister's reply will contain but I would like to remind the Minister that both Ministers, Deputies Bobby Molloy and Mary Harney, only 12 months ago committed themselves to restoring our ODA to the 1986 levels of 0.25 per cent. One of those Ministers is a Cabinet Minister and the other is a junior Minister. That I take to be official Progressive Democrats policy and that will be the support I will be expecting as that is exactly what paragraph (i) in our motion calls for today. I trust the Progressive Democrats members of the Government side here will support us.
I made the point earlier that the call for a foreign affairs committee has come from all sides of this House. I omitted to state at the time that a tragic knock-on effect of having no forum in which to discuss Irish foreign affairs in an all-party civilised way is that most foreign affairs policy is now conducted both in the Dáil and in the Seanad in a disorderly way on the Order of Business. One after another we get up in this House or in the Dáil to make our point, to request Government time to debate this or that, to move Adjournment motions on or to raise under Standing Order 29 issues about different foreign affairs problems. I ask the Minister to bear that in mind when considering the possibility of acceding to our request for a joint committee on foreign afairs.
In 1973, APSO, which is funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs, was established during the time when Deputy Garret FitzGerald was Minister for Foreign Affairs. This body, with responsibility for promoting service by our citizens in developing countries, performed excellent work over the years. I would like to know if the Minister is making use of them now in terms of advice and whether a lot more could be garnered from this source. There is wonderful expertise there. We have had over a thousand assignments on a voluntary, semi-professional and professional basis from this organisation over the years to developing countries and I would like to know how this body relate to the present Department of Foreign Affairs and what use is being made of them by the Department.
I think the Minister will agree with me that Ireland has an international voice which is far beyond our economic and political importance. We have a proud history, both long-term past and recent past, in relation to our commitment to developing countries. We are embarrassed about the position in relation to ODA particularly over the past two years. We are embarrassed about the broken promises for over a decade or so. Some of our politicians have committed themselves and have very honourable records. Deputy Garret FitzGerald I single out particularly in this area. He has constantly spoken and is completely committed to honouring the promises, and even ensuring that those that appear to have been broken to date and are now honoured. To borrow words again, we need to reinvigorate our commitment to the UN target for overseas development aid of 0.7 per cent of GNP and we must start by restoring our overseas development aid to the level of 0.25 per cent. I know there were Parliamentary Questions about the £1 million that disappeared between the Estimates and the budget in relation to overseas development aid. If that money was not needed for what was originally intended, surely it could have been left to take the appallingly bare look off our oveseas development aid figure. It would have helped a little bit towards restoring the 1986 overseas development aid level. I understand it would take £22 million on top of this year's overseas development aid figure to get back now to the 1986 level. Perhaps the Minister could confirm that to me. We would need to bring it up to somewhere around £56 or £57 million next year from the £34 million or £35 million figure this year. That is a large increase but, comforted by the knowledge that the Minister would have all-party support for such a move, I urge him to consider it as a small step towards meeting our UN target of 0.7 per cent of GNP which we need to achieve as soon as possible.
We are the policy makers. The Government of the day are the particular policy makers, and we have to use the tools of State to accomplish change. I ask the Minister to please see this as an all-party approach and to act, for the sake of the country. It is not just the parliamentarians who are asking for action. We are only reflecting the wishes of the people as demonstrated time and time again by their own personal generosity.
As my colleague has had to leave the Chamber for a short time, may I ask if Senator Murphy will second the motion, please?
I will second the motion and my membership position with Fine Gael can be subsequently rationalised.
In seconding the motion, I will confine myself largely to paragraph (iii). I think that even Senator Doyle would agree that the composite motion is not the happiest choice in this case. It seems to me that everything hinges on paragraph (iii), because the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Development Aid could be subsumed under an Oireachtas joint committee on foreign affairs.
I have little to say on the question of ODA. Senator Doyle has dealt with it very ably. I would particularly like to reinforce her point that there is popular support for increasing the percentage of ODA. It is not as if the Government have to worry about taking an unpopular step. This is one of the rare occasions in which the right deed and the political expedience are happily conjoined. I believe Senator Doyle is also right in that the reason our people show extraordinary generosity is that there is a folk memory or a particular perception of the Great Famine and its effects which still has not died out.
I would like to concentrate what I have to say, therefore, on paragraph (iii), that is, on the need to set up an Oireachtas joint committee on foreign affairs. In doing so I should like to begin by quoting from a Member of the Dáil, who has long since gone to his eternal reward, or wherever it is that Deputies and Senators go to. His name was Deputy Gorey. I have no idea from what party he came, except that in that period in November 1923, in the infant days of the State the Minister's political ancestors were still howling in the wilderness. So, he was not one of your own, Minister. Perhaps he was from County Wexford, or maybe that is simply an association of ideas. When they were discussing generally the setting up of Government Departments, feeling their way indeed in the early days of the State, he reacted very irritably against the proposal to set up an External Affairs or Foreign Affairs Department. I refer to the Official Dáil Report for 16 November, 1923, Vol. 5, column 940:
I do not see why we want a Minister for External or Foreign Affairs. We are concerned with no foreign affairs, we have no colonies, we have no interest to clash with any other nations. I think it is ridiculous to be playing with theatricals like this. This Ministry of Foreign Affairs ought to be scrapped and let the Executive Council deal with any foreign matters that have to be dealt with.
By the Executive Council, of course, he meant the Government of the day.
From this historical perspective we might think Deputy Gorey's remark's are at best, amusing and, at worst, blinkered and obscurantist. But it seems that the Government's intransigence in their opposition to the setting up of an Oireachtas joint committee on foreign affairs smacks of the same shortsighted attitude which we find in Deputy Gorey's remarks. Mutatis mutandis, the Government would probably take Deputy Gorey's view that foreign affairs are the business of Government and that Deputies and Senators should not be bothering their pretty little heads with such matters.
This elitist attitude is not good enough. It is no longer the isolated Ireland of Deputy Gorey's world of 1923, but the extremely volatile global village of 1990; and elected representatives must be at least as well informed and as well serviced in the area of foreign affairs as they are, or as they should be, in any area of domestic politics. For the Oireachtas to deal effectively with the foreign affairs — the interlocking of foreign and domestic affairs is a matter which I do not need to dwell on — they need the prestige and the standing and servicing of an Oireachtas joint committee.
Some of us set up a voluntary Oireachtas joint committee, but we have to admit it was a feeble attempt. Indeed, it underlines the point that without official recognition, backing and servicing an ad hoc committee is worst than useless. We need this committee for all kinds of reasons — North-South relations, Anglo-Irish relations, the quick-fire developments in the Community and eastern Europe. It was never so urgent — indeed every day that passes stresses the urgency — to have a joint committee. The Joint Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the EC, of which I am a new member, is all very well but, clearly, it does not go far enough; its remit is very limited.
I hope the House will not think I am being arrogant in asserting that the university Senators have a very special interest in this. In the nature of things they are extremely interested in world affairs. I would not be so smug as to claim that they are better informed than political party Deputies, but there is one significant reason why we are interested. Some of us, at least, have constituents who live outside the jurisdiction and that gives us an extra territorial interest straightaway.
If such a committee is set up, I would like to give warning to the political parties that the University Senators will be demanding proper representation on it. We will not put up with being excluded from these vital committees of the Oireachtas, from the composition of parliamentary delegations, with being excluded from the parliamentary representation to Nicaragua, for example. Indeed, I was reflecting on this last night and trying to come to terms with Ortega's collapse and, in a wild Spike Milligan moment, it occurred to me that if I had been on that delegation, the outcome might have been very different.
Thank God, you were not there.
When I come to write my equivalent of Spike Milligan's, My Part in Hitler's Downfall—“My Part in Ortega's downfall”— I will attribute it to my exclusion from that committee.
On a more serious note, I would also like to take this occasion to protest at the exclusion of the University Senators — a relatively large group, as large if not larger than some of the other groups — from the Anglo-Irish Parliamentary tier.
Acting Chairman
The Senator should adhere to the motion.
The motion concerns an Oireachtas joint committee on foreign affairs and I submit, with respect, what I am saying is quite well within the bounds of relevance. Why, then, do the Government turn an intransigent face to this reasonable and all-party demand that an Oireachtas joint committee on foreign affairs be set up? Partly because of inertia, partly because of conservatism, perhaps very strongly because of a desire to avoid controversy, a desire to avoid provocative debates which might not please some of our friends in embassies scattered around Ballsbridge and partly also, of course — this is very much germane to all politics — because of the desire to mystify. Foreign affairs is somehow an abstruse business which only the high level minds, the globe-trotting people, can really handle. I detect this mystification in the utterances of many Ministers, present company excluded. Ministers and higher civil servants like to think of themselves as experts in this area.
In my view, there are very few experts in foreign affairs. Let us recall the phrase of the Swedish diplomat, Count Oxenstierna, in the letter he wrote to his son, which is as relevant today as it was in the mid-17th century. "Dost thou not know, my son, with what little wisdom the world is governed." Listening to some of the waffle that passes for utterances in foreign affairs, I must say Oxenstierna's observations are still very true. There are distinguished gurus who waffle on these matters, and whom prudence prohibits me from identifying.
Let us take simply as an example that, when people talk about the question of neutrality and how it stands with respect to the changes now taking place and the sea change of NATO and so on, people use words like "security" and "defence" and I honestly believe that very few of them know or have any idea of what they are talking about. What does "security" mean? What can it mean in the Europe of the future?
For this reason alone it seems to me that for the better information of Deputies and Senators the setting up of such a committee is imperative. In short, foreign affairs is much too important a business to be left to the people in Foreign Affairs.
I must say I have great sympathy with this motion and with many of the sentiments, on which, I am sure, we could all agree, that have been so ably and eloquently expressed by Senator Doyle, but I suppose we should come back to the basics of why we should be involved in overseas aid and the purpose of that aid. The purpose of that aid is basically to put it to good use for the benefit of the recipients in the Third World countries. To simply express it on a statistical basis — even though I have great sympathy with the figures and fully agree that we would wish to increase our contribution — is, nonetheless, a very artifical aspect.
I would beg slightly to disagree with Senator Doyle. I have great sympathy with her statements but, nonetheless, I think basically — forgive me saying so, Senator Doyle — we do have a good record. What Senator Doyle is primarily commenting on is the official aid. As she rightly indicated in the rest of her speech, the contribution by Irish people to genuine aid, in the full sense of the word "overseas", bears comparison with any other country or any other group. Maybe, as Senator Murphy has suggested, it is a folk memory of the Famine. That may well be at least part of it. I do not think it is the whole story but it may be part of it. Certainly Senator Doyle mentioned Band-Aid; and the comparison between the response in this country and elsewhere was totally astounding in the contribution in toto per head of population, the number of individuals who subscribed. It was absolutely tremendous.
I would certainly agree that most people in this country support the idea of overseas aid. Indeed, if there was one Government policy on which there might be considerable unanimity, it would be increasing overseas aid. This is what we would all wish to do. Again, without in any way sounding our own trumpet, this is a very good attitude and it certainly does not apply universally in other countries. Many countries feel very reluctant, in their populace as well as in their official dealings, to give overseas aid.
There is a target set by the United Nations. Certainly, it is a target that one should aim at or even exceed. In fact, I would like to see it substantially exceeded and I would fully agree with Senator Doyle's comments regarding the former Taoiseach, Deputy Garret FitzGerald. I think he has made a special contribution to development aid to the Third World countries. I would respectfully suggest that this was not so much on the question of statistics or specific financial contributions by this tiny country; it was by the way he — and, if I may say so, people on our own side — emphasise the importance of substantial financial commitments going from North to South and basically being put to good use.
There I think we come in some ways to the kernal of the problem. Senator Doyle has referred to statistics. I would have to differ, not with the general trend of the statistics which are horrific, as any of us who have visited or had anything to do with the Third World countries are aware, but the statistics in themselves are extraordinarily unreliable and misleading as regards so much of the Third World. There really are not serious statistics: what there is is an enormous want, an enormous need, which passes beyond normal measurement.
Let us come back to the point of really putting this to good use. There are other countries indeed — not all that many — who are giving a higher proportion of official aid, a higher proportion of their GNP. Certainly, that is to be welcomed. But we should be aware of the fact that, whereas we can genuinely say in this country that our aid in so far as we possibly can so organise it — and I think our civil servants and all the other people associated do a very good job — it is basically directed altruistically to the benefit of the recipients. I take the point that some of our State agencies have also been involved effectively on a commercial basis and quite rightly so, but the basic drive from this country on official aid has been altruistic. Quite frankly, that is not the situation with many of the countries who would claim to have a much higher GNP proportion. A lot of that apparent and, I suppose, statistically higher proportion is very tightly related to their market requirements and just sheer commercial interest. So, let us not get too lost over statistics.
There is a second way in which we should reflect on overseas aid when we are comparing ourselves — and I would agree; I want to see it increased as well. However, before we start criticising ourselves in comparison to other countries we would also have to note that many of the other countries who have a greater proportion apparently of official aid are doing so with very definite political strings attached. That is the reality.
Senator Doyle has very rightly mentioned the financial situation. There would be those who in some ways argue that official aid, and particularly much of the financial aid, has been a disaster for the recipients, and that simply increasing by 50 per cent or doubling it, trebling it or quadrupling it would simply add to this appalling financial disaster which has been inflicted upon the Third World countries. They are now far more heavily in debt than they were in the 1970s, despite the substantial increase in aid. Their standard of living in many countries has diminished considerably. The standards of health care have collapsed in many countries. There is an appalling situation. You may say that some of this is of these countries own making — the drive towards urbanisation, the penalisation of farmers and producers of food, the excessive mania for prestigious but largely inappropriate heavy uncompetitive industry. Indeed, we may blame ourselves that some perhaps of our more unscrupulous financial people have taken advantage of Third World countries and, if I may say so, so also have some of our political gurus who have exported totally inappropriate left wing ideas of an urban nature totally unsuited to the benefit of the people in the recipient nations.
Is Senator Conroy talking about Irish gurus or is this a collective denunciation?
If the Senator wishes to include himself, if he feels the hat fits him, he is perfectly welcome to wear it.
I would be grateful if the Sentor would clarify what he is talking about. Meaningless generalities do not contribute to the discussion at all.
Is the Senator finished?
For the moment, yes.
The Senator may wear the cap.
Acting Chairman
The Senator should be allowed speak without interruption. Seantor Ryan will get an opportunity later.
I am sorry that I obviously touched a raw nerve of one of the Senator's on the opposite side.
(Interruptions.)
Have I touched it again? There are two things that are particularly needed and where perhaps we can play some rôle. Let us face it, if we were to double, treble, quadruple our financial contribution it would, I hope, all be put to good use, but it would be a drop in the bucket. What is needed is very much a revision of the ideas of financial aid to the developing countries. Here I think, quite frankly, that the United Nations has failed very considerably and perhaps we in the United Nations can do something to redress this failure.
There has been a failure in a financial sense in that the transfers of funds have merely now reached a stage where interest payments are gobbling them up and the actual economic state of the recipient has declined. They are failing in the sense that probably the greatest disaster of the moment facing, certainly Sub-Saharan Africa, is the AIDS epidemic, which is now reaching appalling proportions. High percentages of the populace are suffering from AIDS, with all the appalling personal tragedies involved but also, let us face it, the economic tragedies, there is the collapse of much of the economy of these countries. There is no end to it in sight; it looks as though it is going to get much worse.
Thirdly, on the question of food supplies, we have all seen these appalling photographs; many of us have very personal experience of starvation in Africa and, indeed, elsewhere. Yet here we are in the Common Market still complaining about our food surpluses. There is something radically wrong there. I certainly do not think that doubling our contribution in official overseas aid is in any sense an excuse for the lack of activity that has taken place in the European Community to deal with the transfer of surplus foods from these countries where we have this gross surplus to those countries where people are starving to death literally because they are not receiving food.
I have great sympathy for the view that the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Development Aid should be reinstituted. I would imagine that many of the various bodies involved in overseas aid on a voluntary basis would probably support this and it would generally be a beneficial development. There are a number of topics that one would like to see discussed. I have touched on a few of them. Another perhaps is on the relationship between emergency aid and long-term aid. Again, it does seem to be an appalling situation that people have to starve to death, be seen on our television screens to be starving to death and dying. Then and only then do we really seem to get round to doing something about it and taking measures. I know that Irish aid, voluntary aid agencies, have done remarkable work under appalling and difficult conditions in this respect, such as the Red Cross and many many others that we all know.
Senator Doyle has referred to the reestablishment of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs. In a sense, this is a very different topic, as Senator Murphy has suggested. There are those in this House who feel that perhaps we spend a disproportionate amount of our time discussing foreign affairs. Yes, I know we should be interested in them; yes, I know that some of them are of enormous importance particularly with the European Community. A slight sense of proporation at times would, perhaps, be beneficial. Though I have great sympathy with this motion, it does seem to be a little bit of a blunderbuss one and I will, therefore, have some difficulty in supporting it.
I formally second the Fine Gael motion.
Senator Murphy has already done so.
I was informed when I came in that that was not acceptable, that because it was a Fine Gael motion it would have to be seconded by a Fine Gael Member. I am just doing as I was instructed.
Acting Chairman
That is accepted. Senator Jackman, without interruption.
Being the 23rd richest of 185 countries, we give the equivalent of 2.5p per person daily to developing countries in official aid. It is significant, in the light of today being Ash Wednesday, that we Irish people spend 16 times as much on tobacco products. Our Government aid to the poorest countries, known as official development assistance, has been cut by more than one-third over the past four years. To get ODA restored to its 1986 level of 0.25 per cent of GNP we would have needed £57.5 million. This would have been the appropriate figure for the Estimates and consequently budget figures. The reality was that the November estimate was £35.5 million, which is a shortfall of £22 million. The budget figure of £34.4 million was, as Senator Doyle stated, over £1 million less because of an overestimate of £1.1 million, which was set aside as our contribution to the Lomé Convention but was not called up; of course, eventually it will be. Instead of leaving the £1.1 million to the grossly under-funded bilateral aid programme, that £1 million reverted to the Exchequer.
Another reduction of £100,000 was taken from the disaster relief provision fund. Granted it went to Romania; and it was needed in Romania and I welcome this. But it further reduced our contribution of £750,000 to £650,000 for disaster relief. There must be an immediate commitment by the Irish Government to return to the 1986 aid level and to a fixed yearly increase in ODA allocations until at least we meet and maintain the target of 0.7 per cent of GNP. Our aim in the motion of a target of 0.27 per cent of GNP is reasonable in the light of our financial problems, but it is just a first step to the 0.35 per cent OECD average figure and eventually to the 0.7 per cent United Nations figure.
I would like to refer briefly to the 1988 ODA report of the Minister of State, Deputy Calleary. He excuses the reduction in aid while stating our retention of our position among the wealthier countries in the world. He goes on to say that our finances deteriorated very rapidly in the eighties, threatening to cripple the economy and its capacity to sustain public expenditure and debt. He states:
Severe budgetary discipline was needed and all sectors, including ODA, were affected in 1988. The figure given, £32.4 million, was £6.7 million less than in 1987. Multilateral programmes were reduced by £3 million and bilateral programmes by £3.7 million. Nevertheless the framework of the aid programme was maintained and the assistance provided continued to be effective and timely. Progress would be made as soon as economic circumstances permitted and that particular year showed just £1 million increase.
I believe economic circumstances have improved here if we are to believe the Government, the budget and all the various headlines we have been subjected to over the last few months. The public response has been marvellous, particularly in relation to the Ethiopian appeal and I believe the Lenten appeal by Tróciare and other agencies will be generously answered. The Government this time are not being forced to do something against the tide of public opinion.
In relation to the second and third points of the motion, should we reconstitute the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Development Aid and also establish an Oireachtas committee on foreign affairs, this is urgently needed to ensure that ongoing informed debate on development issues takes place on a regular basis. The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Development Aid was disbanded — I would like Minister Calleary's comments on this — because, it appears, of budgetary cutbacks and the promise of a senior foreign affairs committee. This has not happened.
The setting up of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Development Aid and the establishment of the foreign affairs committee are, I still believe, essential and should be part of any structures for foreign affairs policy. My experience, short as it has been, is that since the commencement of this Seanad session there has been a staggering range of motions covering foreign affairs — Cambodia or Kampuchea, Ethiopia, the USSR, EI Salvador, Eastern Europe, South Africa. All of these surely indicate the need for such committees.
I would like to refer briefly to our bilateral aid programme which was cut from its 1986 figure of £15.34 million to £9.5 million, the four priority areas being Sudan, Tanzania, Lesotho and Zambia. Think of the pluses for us, for semi-State agencies. Irish people are paid to work in developing countries and they are target areas for trade expansion. From a political aspect the Government should increase their political efforts at European and international levels to promote peaceful settlement of conflicts, the effective implementation of development programmes, assistance and aid in regions of political conflict and turmoil and a full recognition of human rights.
I would like briefly to refer to environmental issues. Environmental protection is an area of increasing international concern clearly demonstrating the reality of many peoples one world thesis. Environmental destruction is not only a disease of the industrialised world. The poorest countries of the developing world are often the chief victims of industrial pollution and environmental damage caused by policies and activities.
There is growing evidence that serious climatic variations, which have disastrous effects on the health, safety and livelihood of people in the Third World, can often be traced to large scale industries carried out by or at the behest of the industrialised world. In these circumstances surely the Minister would agree that an effective development policy must incorporate a real concern to combat the damaging circumstances of these practices.
What should we do? We should allocate financial resources, through bilateral and multilateral mechanisms to assist developing countries to meet more stringent environmental protection standards and we should improve measures to improve environmental conditions in developing countries. Active political and legal pressure should be applied to companies in both the developed and developing worlds to operate within acceptable safety and environmental standards, ensuring that financial responsbility for remedial action is enforcible against any offending company. The Minister can understand from the range of what I have covered the necessity for having those committees.
We need active assistance nationally and internationally for agriculture policies which promote improvements in full production and reduce the use of toxic chemicals. We need effective legislation to prevent dumping of toxic products or banning such practices in developing countries. A sensitive development policy which takes proper control of global environmental concerns must promote projects and schemes which pursue energy-saving and safe waste recycling.
Comprehensive environmental protection is difficult to translate into practice in the developing countries. Extreme poverty for them increases the desire for industrialisation and the employment and income which this brings. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that economic development in the developing countries is not achieved at the cost of environmental devastation because it is too high a price for any of us to pay.
Senator Doyle has spoken very comprehensively about the problems of debt restructuring in the Third World, so I will leave that. Development education in schools, which I have spoken about before in this House, should aim at promoting the positive aspects of the Third World rather than the negative aspects that are continually promoted. I believe that young children should be exposed to the culture of developing countries and not always pushed, as it were, with a hand-out mentality towards them, but to respect their culture, their values and show that an awareness would help eventually towards a better understanding of their needs — not our perceived needs for them but their own needs. That is a matter which the Minister might take up. Of course the role of women is another wide issue in the development area. We need, as a matter of urgency, to increase our level of aid initially from 0.25 to 0.27, which is what is in the motion, to our OECD average level of 0.35 and, eventually, which will be difficult but we must at least aim towards it, to the United Nation's target of 0.7. We must reconstitute the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Development Aid and establish a foreign affairs committee. The passing of this motion is not just a pious aspiration, it is a basic responsibility and should not be subjected to whim, emotion or expediency. It should be our guarantee.
It gives me great pleasure to speak on this subject even though I cannot say that I accept the terms of the motion as laid down. The first comment I have to make is that as far as I am concerned the motion is very predictable and simplistic. As somebody who has been working for a long time in one of the more under-developed regions of this country, I have some understanding of the frustrations that must be felt by the people of the Third World at the simplistic way that we think we will tackle their problems.
My experiences of development aid are that money grants and other aids like that tend to suit the convenience of the giver, the donor, more than to meet the very necessary requirements of the donee. We have to face the reality that the problems of the Third World, as we call it, are immense and that the basic economic structures of the world are what we should be tackling in this debate. The fact is — this is not just simply a matter for Government — that we in this part of the world are happy to give small sums of money but we, as people, would be very reluctant to make a major change in our lifestyle that would make a substantial change in the lifestyle of the poorer people of this world.
Senator Conroy touched on one aspect of this, an aspect that has always both puzzled and annoyed me, that is the question of food surpluses in the EC. It seems totally ridiculous to me that we would talk about 0.25 of GNP to 0.27 and at the same time that as a nation, we would not be tackling within the EC the problem of the redistribution of food throughout the world.
It seems at UN level we must face up to the fact that we can on this planet of ours provide enough food to feed all its people and the problem relates more to distribution than of our ability to produce. Similarly, we must also look at the various structures that ensure that some very basic raw materials on which the developing world depend are at unjustifiably low cost at times in world markets and that if we really want to tackle these problems that these, rather than a simplistic motion affecting money, are the items we should be tackling. To do this we would have to start a national debate and ensure that whatever the Government decided to do the people would go with them. This is where the real dilemma lies.
The Government could decide tomorrow to increase aid but unless the people are behind such an increase, the realities of government would come home to roost, because, as I have said repeatedly in this House, if we are to spend more money on any programme and if we do not believe in increasing our current budget deficit that money will have to come out of some other programme. That is where one finds the little snags. It is a question of Government reflecting people and people reflecting the Government.
It is simplistic for a party in Opposition, to propose that aid be increased without specifying which Government programme they would cut back on in order to finance that Government aid. Week after week we hear calls for more expenditure but nobody tells us where this money will come from and what programme it will come from. Under the terms of the motion, if the proposers are to be taken seriously, it would be incumbent on the Opposition to specify where the money is to come from.
In regard to paragraphs (ii) and (iii) of the motion, I have a certain amount of sympathy with the requests there but, in general, we suffer in this country from too much talking, too much debate and too little action. We seem to push every problem away by setting up joint committees, committees and commissions. It would be much more important for whatever Government are in power, to set about doing those things that everybody sees should be done rather than setting up more committees, piling up more paper, to say what a lot of the time is the obvious. If all the commissions and ideas that have been developed over the years were implemented we would have enough on hand to last us a good few years. Certainly in latter years, as somebody involved in development, I have come to treat all committees of this type as anathema, as a simple way of fobbing us off, of telling us to run away while the Government think about this matter further. I hope that the Government, rather than setting up more committees, will continue to uphold the proud tradition of this country in helping the developing world and taking our stand, not only on the question of financial contributions, which no matter what percentage of GNP we give will always be small, but taking a leading rôle in the EC and the United Nations to ensure that the aim of bringing North and South on this globe into harmony and of developing and not exploiting the poorer countries is pursued. The necessity for doing this is very urgent.
Our prosperity in the long term will depend on the prosperity of the Third World. We depend on them just as much as they depend on us. All we have to think of is the vast amount of basic raw materials that we get from those countries. Therefore, it would, even in our own selfish interest, be of paramount importance to ensure that these countries develop. We should never forget that it is only a little over 100 years since we were a country of great poverty. It is only 140 years since we suffered the Great Famine. We tend nowadays to pass that off as a nightmare of a considerable time ago but, when we think about it, all of us have known people who knew people who were alive at that time.
The fantastic strides we have made in that time as a country should give us the confidence to believe that poverty in the world is not there of necessity. It is there because of unequitable distribution of resources and there basically because of the inherent selfishness of man. We should never forget that at times when we needed help perhaps we did not get that help. Therefore, we should not in our time stand back as a nation and look on inactively at the suffering and poverty of other nations. We should believe that it is within the capacity of the richer nations to help the poorer nations in such a way that they can help themselves.
I would like to stress that particular point. Help given by countries should be basically in co-operation and consultation with the people who are being helped. It should be given, as far as possible, in such a way that rather than alleviate the problem for the short-term it tackles the root of the problem. When we look at the money we spend, when we look at the programmes we get involved in, more and more we should direct our resources towards sharing with people on an equal basis our skills and our experience in helping to get them to help themselves. Our experience in this work is that when it is done on that basis, when development is basically done through the agency working in a partnership with the developed nations, the results are much more long term and much more lasting.
Mar a dúirt mé, tá an-áthas orm labhairt ar an ábhar seo. Is ábhar é a bhfuil munitir na hÉireann i gcoitinne tar éis a thaispeáint uair i ndiaidh a chéile go bhfuil an-spéis acu ann tríd an airgead a dheonaíonn siad don Tríú Domhan gach bliain. Chomh maith leis sin, níor cheart dúinn riamh dearmad a dhéanamh ar na daoine ar fad ón tír seo — agus b'fhéidir gurb shin an rud is mó a thugann an tír seo, ní airgead ach daoine — a chuaigh thar sáile, idir shagairt, mhná rialta, bhráithre agus daoine tuatha, agus a rinne obair thar na blianta i dtíortha bochta, a d'oibrigh leis na daoine agus a sheas leo lena gcearta a bhaint amach.
Is tráthúil go bhfuilimid ag caint ar an ábhar seo os rud é go rabhamar ag caint ar shaorú Nelson Mandela an tseachtain seo caite. Ní féidir fadhbanna an Tríú Domhain a dheighilt ó na fadhbanna polaitíochta atá sna tíortha sin, fadhbanna a rabhamar ag caint orthu an tseachtain seo caite, agus fadhbanna, tá súil agam, go mbeimid ag díriu ár n-aire orthu arís go luath.
Os rud é go ndúirt an Seanadóir Ó Cuív nach raibh éinne sásta aon tuairimí a chur os comhair an Tí faoi cad as a thiocfadh an bhreis airgid, ba mhaith liom go rá go bhfuil sé curtha os comhair an Tí agam féin agus mo chomhSheanadóirí Ross, O'Toole agus Norris. Sin moladh 72 ar chlár an Tí:
That Seanad Éireann—
—noting the widely held view that a significant number of items of military equipment purchased for the Defence Forces in recent years, in particular the purchase of new rifles, and the purchase of surface to air missiles were either unnecessary or unsuitable for Irish conditions, and
—recognising the increased likelihood of a reduction of military expenditure all over Europe,
calls for a five year moratorium on the purchase of new military equipment, with the resources saved being used to add to Ireland's overseas development aid expenditure.
I am quite happy to nail my colours to the mast of believing we should transfer resources for military expenditure to development expenditure, so are, I believe, all of my Independent colleagues and so I believe is a considerable proportion of the population of what is now euphemistically and with some overstatement called Europe but indeed of what is perhaps more appropriately called the European Community.
I wish Senator Conroy in the course of what was otherwise a reasonably reflective thought would leave out these jibes because we could get involved in jibes——
I quite obviously touched a sore point.
We could get involved in jibes about speculative oil exploration and what good it does the world, too.
No interruptions, please.
I am very sensitive to a number of things that I will come to in my own time. I agree fully with the motion, with one exception — I actually had to check this with the Fine Gael Senators — namely, the extraordinarily limited target they have set for the development of overseas development aid, to increase to 0.25 per cent of GNP as it was in 1987 and to aim at a target of 0.27 per cent of GNP in the reasonable future. I have had two stories from Fine Gael on this; one of which is that the figure is correct and I think that Senator Jackman is going to tell me is not correct.
The motion is down as 0.25 per cent. I am not saying that it is what we aim for ultimately. We aim for 0.7 per cent ultimately but we are realists.
Acting Chairman
The Senator had her chance to speak. Senator Ryan without interruption.
I would be quite happy to accept a correction from Senator Jackman but not an argument. It is appallingly understated to suggest that this is a realistic target. I resent this word realism. I live in a world of very harsh realities, among them being the reality of having to get elected and re-elected to this House which concentrates my mind on the views of the admittedly somewhat sheltered electorate from whom I seek my support but I know what they think. I know, for instance, that the Minister confirmed in a recent answer to a Dáil question that he received 600 different representations on the issue of the Irish Government's views on Cambodia. I have a strong feeling that when I suggest that pathetically inadequate targets for ODA are a betrayal of the Irish people, whether they be the Government decisions or the major Opposition party's targets, they are a betrayal of the Irish people. To the extent I am unhappy with the motion; but not to the extent that I would vote against it because there is much in it to be welcomed.
The level of interest in Cambodia, which the Minister is aware of, is a good argument for the Oireachtas taking to itself, which it should, the right to set up committees on overseas development co-operation and on foreign affairs. One thing that is becoming apparent is that as democracy is restored in eastern Europe in its full vigour we are discovering that democracy means a Government which actually is, in practice, accountable to Parliament, not just in theory, and which actually has to do something that would shock most of the Irish Governments we have had for the last 20 years. They would actually have to argue their points to a Parliament that could not guarantee them a majority in order to get something through that Parliament. It would be a healthy exercise both for parliamentarians and for Government to actually have to make up their minds about things on the merits and for Governments to have to win their arguments on the merits of the arguments. That is why an Oireachtas committee on foreign affairs and an Oireachtas committee on overseas development and co-operation is so enormously important. It would restore the supremacy of the Oireachtas in areas where the Oireachtas ought to be entirely supreme and not bodies which are allowed to talk about issues when the Government see fit or indeed in a manner in which the Government see fit.
I could mention, on the issue of foreign policy, a long list of issues where the people drove the Government in the direction in which they were more or less reluctant to go. I, for one, detected a quite remarkable stengthening of the Government's views on sanctions against South Africa as Irish public opinion emerged subsequent to the release of Nelson Mandela. I have no doubt about the changing views of the previous Government during the visit of President Reagan, from a position of bland indifference and silence on Central America to a position of quite vigorous public criticism in the light of Irish public opinion. It is a great pity that that vigorous, critical, well informed and extraordinarily progressive public opinion is not allowed to express itself through a formal mechanism within the Houses of the Oireachtas.
We would be well served by committees such as that. I am not sure where the resistance comes from. I am not trying to pin down the Minister of State on this. I do not believe it comes from the Minister of State who is the most forthcoming Minister of State we have had in that Department and who has honoured this House by his presence at a succession of debates, all of which — whatever our differences — I know he takes seriously, all of which he participates in entirely. He sits here, he listens and he responds to the debate. The Minister of State has no problems and should not have any problems with an Oireachtas committee. It would simply be a formalisation of the sort of relationship he has with this House and I am sure with the Oireactas generally.
I keep wondering, who is it? Are there experts somewhere who believe they know better than the people? It must be said over and over again — this has a lot in common with Senator Ó Cuív's remarks — there are no experts who know better than the people. There never can be and there never will be. There are experts who can attempt to influence the people. There are experts who can attempt to change their minds but the people have the right to be wrong and the people are sovereign. It is a very fundamental principle and it is one, in the light of a result of an election in Nicaragua which disappointed me bitterly, is a position that I am happy to reiterate, that the people have a right to make their own decisions. I will defend that right, but I will also defend that right against those who would take certain areas away from them on the grounds of an alleged lack of expertise on their part.
At the same time, having supported, and I do support vigorously, the view that our overseas development aid is hopelessly inadequate in terms of its scale, it behoves us to make a few cautionary comments about aid as a source of development on its own. Again, not for the first time, and on a less controversial issue than on an occasion when we shared a platform recently, I agreed with Senator Ó Cuív. I will not put anything on the record that will put Senator Ó Cuív in trouble. I agree with him that aid on its own is not necessarily a good thing, not necessarily sufficient or not necessarily adequate. I would like to quote an eminent authority on this that I recommend to every Member of this House.
Debate adjourned.
Acting Chairman
When is it proposed to sit again?
At 10.30 a.m. tomorrow.