Crisis in Mozambique: Statements.

Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (Ms O'Donnell)

The Government and I, as Minister of State, welcome this opportunity to update the Seanad on the current situation in Mozambique. I have just returned from the landmark summit meeting in Cairo between the Heads of State and Government of the European Union and all the African countries. At that meeting we were able to meet with the representatives of Mozambique and discuss with them the measures which need to be taken for reconstruction and long-term sustainable development to help prevent such disasters in the future. President Chissano was very conscious of what Ireland had been able to do so far and expressed his thanks to the Government, Irish NGOs and the people of Ireland. The Taoiseach, for his part, and I were able to assure President Chissano of our personal, genuine, long-term commitment to supporting the rehabilitation effort and to working with Mozambique to ensure it gets back on track quickly to continue its successful programme of economic growth.

Since the flooding, Ireland Aid has been at the forefront of international efforts to provide aid to the victims of this disaster and continued, meaningful, long-term support to the government of Mozambique. I am happy to report that the relief operation has been successful overall. The situation is stabilising. Ireland Aid has contributed a total of £2,365,000 to the relief effort and our support is ongoing.

The initial rescue phase, which caught the attention of the world as pictures of people stranded on trees and roof tops flashed across our television screens, is now over. Rescue operations are now completed. The relief agencies and donors have moved into the second phase of the operation. Approximately 250,000 people are housed in camps and collective centres. With our assistance, aid agencies are providing shelter, clean water, basic sanitation, food and basic health care to these people, but there are many more people in need. This year's harvest has literally been swept away and even those who did not lose their homes are without food. Currently, 463,000 people, including the displaced and those who have been isolated, are receiving food aid. Airlifts of food and other emergency items are arriving daily.

As the waters recede, the relief operation is moving into a resettlement and rehabilitation phase, helping the displaced return to their towns and villages and start rebuilding their homes and lives. In addition, roads and bridges are being repaired so that people can go home. We are monitoring the progression of the cyclone Hudah, which is at present over Madagascar. However, at this stage, heavy rain is not expected to hamper the relief efforts and we hope, for all concerned, that the work will not be interrupted.

While the imperative was to complete our rescue efforts and meet the short-term needs of the people of Mozambique, we are now actively pursuing our medium and long-term commitments. We will not allow the remarkable progress Mozambique has made in recent years to be simply washed away. Much thought and planning is going into this phase of the operation. My Department is working closely with the government of Mozambique, the UN and international donors on guidelines for both reconstruction and future development.

Ireland has been to the fore in international relief efforts. I would state, however, that the international humanitarian response to the Mozambique disaster from Western countries and the southern African region has been unprecedented. There has been some criticism of the slowness of the response by the international community to the crisis. While there is always room for improvement, it should be noted that the sheer scale of the devastation took everyone by surprise.

As I outlined in my previous address to the Seanad at the beginning of March, there were three distinct events which resulted in the devastating scale of this disaster. Torrential rains in February were exacerbated by the arrival of the cyclone Eline towards the end of the month. This resulted in pressure on the dams in other countries upstream. What had until then been a severe but manageable crisis escalated into a major humanitarian emergency. At this stage it became clear that more helicopters, personnel and boats would be needed as whole communities became isolated, cut off by rising flood waters in the southern and central provinces of Mozambique.

Governments around the world did respond at this point, but it took time to mobilise troops and military equipment and to transport them thousands of miles to the affected areas. The South African Air Force, as Mozambique's neighbour, was available on the ground much quicker and performed Trojan work in rescuing stranded people from trees and rooftops. Although Ireland AID had no helicopters to send, we helped to fund their rescue efforts. Military personnel, planes and helicopters did come from the UK, the United States, Portugal, France and Spain and were sent to bolster the South Africans' commendable efforts.

If the response was delayed, it did not mean that it was insufficient. On 23 February the UN launched an initial appeal for $13.5 million. Since then, a total of over $118 million has been received. The additional moneys can now be used to fund UN programmes to target basic needs and rehabilitation activities over the next six months.

If there had not been such an effective response from both the Irish aid agencies present on the ground, as well as from donor Governments and NGOs around the world, the loss of life would have been much more cruel. Ireland Aid's response was immediate, practical and focused. Our embassy in Maputo alerted us to the problems resulting from the initial rains at the beginning of February and took the initiative of organising an aerial survey of the province of lnhambane where some of our major projects are located. The survey, conducted in order to assess the situation and the level of response required, was the first to be carried out in this area.

Furthermore, our embassy staff and a medical expert, provided special briefings to other donors such as the World Food Programme, Médecins Sans Frontières and Save the Children Fund, sharing with our partners Ireland Aid's in-depth knowledge and expertise of the country and the particular areas that had been devastated.

In response to the initial flooding and on the advice of our embassy, we made the first emergency allocation of £160,000. The money was provided to the World Food Programme towards the cost of their air-bridge operation in lnhambane province. Money was also provided to Concern, one of the Irish agencies operational on the ground in Mozambique, for an emergency relief project in Maputo, with a view to providing assistance to the most vulnerable people.

In the wake of cyclone Eline, the scale of the flooding reached a new and devastating scale. Ireland Aid responded swiftly; a further £540,000 was allocated and provided to the World Food Programme, both for emergency supplies and for the rescue operation being carried out by the South African Air Force. The Irish NGOs, GOAL and Concern, also received funding to support their excellent emergency humanitarian work.

While the emergency response is concerned with the immediate issues of saving and protecting in lives, it can never be more than a quick-fix solution. Ireland can really make a difference with financial support is in the area of prevention. As Senators will know, Mozambique is a priority country for Irish Government development aid. The budget allocation this year is £7.4 million, up from £6.4 million last year. I have asked my Department to administer programme expenditure with maximum flexibility to help Mozambique to deal with the consequences of this emergency.

Already £1 million has been reallocated to be used for reconstruction and recovery activities. A further £650,000 was reallocated from a health sector support programme and was used to buy essential medicines and vaccines to prevent outbreaks of cholera and other water-borne diseases.

On a positive note, as the flood waters continue to subside it is clear that we will continue with much of our established Ireland Aid programme in lnhambane. We are looking at several options to see where we can best add value to this long-term rehabilitation process. In particular, we are looking at a number of road rehabilitation projects, repairing the damage to infrastructure caused by the flooding and, literally, helping to pave the way to future economic growth. This part of the operation must be seen as a joint effort between the international donors and the Mozambican authorities. All consultation and planning is being a carried out in co-operation with the central and local Government to ensure that the best interests of local communities are met.

Part of the reason that Mozambique suffered such devastating effects as a result of the rains and cyclones is because the country is still underdeveloped and does not have the capacity to cope with anything out of the ordinary. The key issue in preventing the loss of life and devastation caused by natural disasters is the elimination of poverty. Poverty eradication is the umbrella of Ireland Aid policy. Development co-operation and assistance must focus on long-term sustainable development. We are aiming to empower countries to cope better with these crises when they hit. The long-term focus of our priority country programme in Mozambique, for example, is to address the fundamental problem and not just its immediate symptoms.

Reconstruction and reducing vulnerability will also be the focus of the donor co-ordination meeting being convened in Rome at the end of April. A framework for sustainable recovery and vulnerability reduction in Mozambique has been prepared by the UN development programme in consultation with the Mozambican Government and will be presented at the Rome meeting.

Ireland has also provided assistance to Mozambique through our membership of the European Union. The European Commission is making approximately 25 million euros available for emergency aid and short to medium-term rehabilitation of the worst affected areas. Over 4 million euros are being channelled through ECHO, the European Community Humanitarian Office, with 21 million euros earmarked for rehabilitation.

With a view to longer-term assistance the Commission intends to increase funding under the European Development Fund from 100 million euros in 1999 to 150 million euros this year. Ireland will pledge its full support for these initiatives at European level.

I am acutely aware of the serious constraints on developments that heavy external debt repayments impose on Mozambique. The Government has been vocal in calling for accelerated debt relief for Mozambique. Ireland Aid has contributed $5 million to Mozambique's debt relief programme. Mozambique's total external public debt exceeds $5 billion at today's values. After implementation of debt relief plans, including the enhanced highly indebted poor countries initiative, it should fall to less than $1 billion. Nevertheless, while these initiatives are welcome, there is a compelling case for the cancellation of all Mozambique's external debt. I welcome the recent announcements by the UK, France and Spain to cancel Mozambique's debt to them. I also welcome the decision by the Paris Club of bilateral creditor nations to defer Mozambique's debts service payments to the group. We would encourage other bilateral donors to take similar action at international fora.

I am glad to be able to assure the House that while the television cameras and reporters may have moved on, Ireland Aid is still present in Mozambique. We are there to stay as long as we are needed. Ireland Aid is committed to our partnership with the people and Government of Mozambique. We will continue to work with them to recover from this disaster.

With your permission, a Chathaoirligh, I would like to mention another critical matter, that is our aid programme to Ethiopia which is another priority country for Government development aid. Drought has led to serious food shortages which could affect over 12 million people. Ethiopia is expected to be the worst affected of the countries in the Horn of Africa and the crisis will impact most on the chronically food-insecure central and northern highlands and the pastoral lowlands. The lack of rain is also leading to problems in feeding cattle and, obviously, with access to water. It is estimated that six to eight million Ethiopians are currently in need of food aid if they are to survive.

We all have vivid memories of the terrible famines of the 1980s. It was in response to these that the Government decided to establish an embassy in Addis and to work with the Ethiopian people on long-term development programmes which help prevent, or at least mitigate the effects of, drought and chronic food deficiencies. Proof of the success of this approach is that the effects of the extreme food insecurity are not as severe in the areas where Ireland Aid is working with the national and local authorities on agricultural development, and land and water management.

In co-ordination with the rest of the donor community, we also need to provide the right type of humanitarian assistance which will avert this disaster. The international community has already reacted favourably with the EU, the US and other donors pledging about 800,000 tonnes of an estimated one million tonnes required for Ethiopia to the end of this year. The main problem now is not the availability of food aid, but how this food is to be stored and distributed.

We should not wait for horrific pictures on television to provoke a reaction to the plight of our fellow human beings in Ethiopia. I have been allocating humanitarian assistance consistently over the past year to a number of these forgotten emergencies. For example, a total of £810,000 in humanitarian assistance was allocated to countries in the Horn of Africa in 1999.

We have been following with great concern for several months the precarious food situation in Ethiopia. A team from the Irish Government, from Ireland Aid, recently travelled widely in Ethiopia and saw for themselves the effects of this drought. I have allocated £359,000 in emergency funding since last December. Most of these funds have gone to Concern which has a long and very credible history of working in Ethiopia and is implementing supplementary feeding programmes there. The remainder has been allocated to the World Food Programme which has a response plan in place.

Officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs have raised the developing humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa on a number of occasions at EU and UN level over the past months and weeks. I am keeping developments under very close review and intend to make further allocations of assistance as the overall international response becomes clearer. The embassy in Addis is currently in consultation with the local and national authorities to ascertain how best to offer additional assistance. I had discussions with the Ethiopian foreign minister at the summit in Africa on this looming crisis in Ethiopia.

Some concerns were raised as usual about the possible diversion of humanitarian funds for military use. This is particularly relevant in Ethiopia because they are currently at war with Eritrea. This issue arises in many emergencies. Ireland Aid has ample experience of working with national and local authorities on the long-term programmes. In countries where there is conflict, none of these funds are paid to the central treasury but are used at local and regional level. All inputs and outputs are monitored carefully by our embassy staff in Addis. In emergency situations, funds are usually given through international agencies and NGOs. Ethiopia has a well-established disaster prevention and preparedness commission. Donors, including Ireland, work with this commission to prevent and mitigate disasters.

The emergency funding has been given to Concern and the World Food Programme who have given us assurances that they will reach the most vulnerable people. We have a moral responsibility and imperative to respond to the suffering of our fellow human beings in Ethiopia and to work with the democratically elected Government of Ethiopia and other members of the international community to prevent the present situation from deteriorating into a major emergency.

Mrs. Taylor-Quinn

I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Deputy O'Donnell, to the House and thank her for the update on her recent visit to Cairo and her meeting with the foreign minister from Mozambique. I join with her in saying that Ireland is proud to be to the forefront in providing assistance and aid. Since Mozambique is one of our priority countries it is all the more important that we are seen to be to the forefront. While we are a very small country internationally, our moral force within the international community has been quite significant. It is highly commendable that we have been to the forefront in this crisis.

While the Minister praises the response of the international community – and they deserve praise for their later efforts – initially their response left much to be desired. There seemed to be weeks and weeks of crisis before there was a serious response from the international community. In an era where literally in 24 hours one can circumvent the globe, it seems incredible that it took so long for some of the aircraft, helicopters, military equipment and assistance to get into Mozambique. It was unfortunate that it did not happen sooner. The Minister has stated quite clearly, and rightly so, that if there had not been such a positive response from the international community, many more people would have been lost in the flooding. I suggest that many people need not have been lost if there had been a quicker initial response to the disaster.

Africa is an extraordinary continent, with absolute extremes, from complete aridity to flooding and heavy rains. The extremes make it very difficult for people to survive. I thank the Minister for the update on the crisis in Ethiopia, which is the complete opposite to that in Mozambique, with absolute famine due to the lack of water. It is a typical example of the extremes within the continent. I thank the Minister for the assurance she has given this House that the funding will be contributed to the local and regional communities rather than to the central treasury to ensure it reaches the people. The direction of the money to Trócaire, Concern and the NGOs is highly commendable because then one knows it is reaching the people on the ground. That is a very wise direction to have taken and perhaps in many instances that is the only direction. While respecting democratically elected governments and ministers and also recognising that many of these democracies are at a very early stage and that the basics of democracy, as we understand them, could differ quite considerably, taking that direction has been commendable.

It was quite horrific and frightening to witness on the television and in the newspapers the mindboggling pictures of people hanging off branches of trees waiting for somebody to rescue them. Women with children in their arms, up to their hips in water, were trying to get on to boats or helicopters. It was an extraordinary sight and quite frightening.

The Minister raised the question of future development and the process of reconstruction. This is vitally important, as are the half million people who need food. It must be ensured that they are properly fed and housed to prevent major outbreaks of disease and avoid a further death toll. This immediate problem needs to be dealt with and I am confident the Minister will do everything in her power to ensure that is closely monitored. I compliment the Minister on the work she is doing and the profile she has given this and all the other areas with which she deals within her remit in the Department.

On the process of reconstruction, I join the Minister in welcoming the decision by a number of countries to waive the debt owed to them by Mozambique. I also join in the appeal to other countries to take the same action. Countries who are involved in the Paris Club of bilateral creditor nations should join with those as well. It is impossible for a country like this to return to any sustainable development while having this massive debt because it is not humanly possible for them to proceed. At a time of a buoyant world economy, the First World can well afford to respond in that way.

Africa is in great difficulty with many wars across the continent. There are so many immediate difficulties that it seems to be constantly faced with problems, whether political difficulties, famine or flood difficulties. Of all the continents, it is the one which seems to be particularly besieged by difficulties. All the international agencies, the United Nations, the European Community and the major world powers need to get together and identify clearly the areas of potential difficulty relating to climatic conditions, military and political problems and to put a plan of action in place to ensure that something can be done to stave off these dangers.

Flooding is caused by heavy rain and the bursting of river embankments. The Limpopo is a huge river travelling through Mozambique. The nature of the land is soft and is subject to erosion. It would cost billions of pounds to secure the river, but there must be sections of it which are particularly vulnerable. Engineering skills need to be applied to reconstruction projects in those areas and this must be done immediately. It is happening in other countries such as Lesotho, where a massive dam sends water to South Africa, and there must be a way of directing the water surplus in some countries to arid countries. The Minister of State should examine this matter in conjunction with her counterparts in the EU and the rest of the international community.

I commend the staff of the embassy in Mozambique, other Department officials and the Irish people working for Trócaire, Concern and other organisations in the area. These people are meeting the difficulties every day and they are responding very positively. The work done by these people is extraordinary and they deserve the compliments of the House.

We have allocated a reasonable amount of money to this area, but a wonderful budget surplus was announced recently for the first quarter of the year. The Minister for Finance will be feeling generous and this is a glorious opportunity for the Minister of State to ask him for extra funding to deal with this crisis. I urge her to do so, as she has fought for additional funding in the past and the door should now be open to her. She should act as soon as she can before other Ministers beat her to it.

I am delighted the Minister of State has given us a first hand account of recent developments and the Government's current course of action regarding Mozambique. I wish her well. I am delighted preventative measures are being taken in relation to Ethiopia which anticipate difficulties before they become too serious. I hope that action prevents any major crisis arising in Ethiopia.

Mr. Lanigan

I welcome the Minister of State addressing not just the ongoing situation in Mozambique but the famine in Ethiopia, where more than 16 million people could be affected in coming weeks. Some people think eradicating poverty and dealing with disasters, natural and man-made, is simple, but these are complex problems and their solutions are even more complex. Such disasters have occurred through the centuries – floods and famines are mentioned in the Bible so these events are not just of the present but have been occurring for millennia.

The advent of worldwide television has brought these disasters into the public arena. CNN goes to a disaster area and is followed by other media. These media set the menu of the day by selecting the place that is best for the cameras. People jump on the bandwagon and disappear later, but this does not mean that that particular area is the only part of the world with problems. Such attention concentrates aid in the areas being publicised, which may help, but it does nothing to deal with natural and man-made disasters on a global basis.

The latest buzzword in defence is interoperability and how people are to get together on a global scale to deal with conflict throughout the world. There is a lack of cohesion in international planning to deal with disasters. Everyone suggests a rapid response programme, but how is such a programme to deal with a situation in the Horn of Africa today, Mozambique tomorrow, Sierra Leone the day after, then South America and Asia after that? This is a very complex area. I do not know how the EU, UN, OAU, the ASEAN group and the South American nations are to get together and deal with it, but the problem will have to be solved.

As the Minister of State said, there was a need in Mozambique for helicopters as there was no land transport. In addition, the configuration of the flooded land meant deep draught boats could not be used and vessels with a very shallow draught had to be found. South Africa sent in helicopters very rapidly, but thousands of refugees – 250,000 in one area – had to be accommodated. There are huge problems here which cannot be solved by newspaper headlines or facetious comments on television. The real challenge to Ireland and other countries is making available resources to deal with such events.

The work done in both Mozambique and Ethiopia by our embassy staff has been mentioned, and they do a tremendous job. There are also NGOs such as Trócaire, Concern and GOAL working in those countries and doing tremendous work. There is always tension between Government bodies, international organisations and NGOs which can at times become personal and lead to attacks on Ministers and Governments for not doing enough. The NGOs may feel frustrated that they are not getting enough resources and feel that they can do a better job than international organisations, but there is a difference between fire brigade action and long-term aid.

Now that the problem in Mozambique is beginning to recede, how is that country to return to the level of sustainable development that was emerging there? After a long civil war Mozambique was beginning to tackle the problem of restoring its economy and, as has been said, there is no doubt that it could be economically successful given its huge natural resources. However, those resources must be used for the benefit of its people, whose income per person was, until recently, at the lowest end of the scale.

I was in Mozambique some years ago and one of the major problems, apart from poverty and the deprivation caused by the civil war, was the mining of the country during that war. The ongoing international programme to de-mine Mozambique was beginning to have an effect. Farmers were able return to their fields and children could play without fear of being blown up by mines. Following the flooding, there is a danger that mines which were not buried deep in the ground will re-emerge in places which have not yet been mapped.

The eradication of debt is something to which we all aspire. The living standards in countries such as Mozambique are derisory. People barely manage to survive. We must ensure that those survival standards are improved in some small way through the elimination of debt.

Global warming is creating and will continue to create huge problems, such as increased levels of flooding, in many countries. We have seen that in Ireland too. Flooding problems are natural in origin but cause great devastation, as we saw in Mozambique. One cannot simply go into a democratic country in which natural disasters occur and say, "We're here to save you." There must be a consultation process with democratically elected people but this can often prove difficult and create delays.

The war between Ethiopia and Eritrea was a very vicious one, as all wars are. I hope the Eritrean Government will allow the 800,000 tonnes of food which is currently available to be delivered to Ethiopia through Eritrea's ports. The alternative will be to fly the food into the country. I have witnessed the problems associated with flying food provided through the World Food Programme through Kenya into southern Sudan. It simply does not work. The troops of General John Garang, leader of the so-called Liberation Front in southern Sudan, get most of the food and may reallocate any food which remains. There is a possibility that food could be conveyed to Ethiopia through Djibouti. Unless the Eritrean Government reacts positively over the coming days, every effort should be made to do that.

We are not talking today about Mozambique in particular, rather about the response the international community can make to disasters such as the one which occurred in that country. Some people have been critical of the Irish Government's actions in the past. As a Government of a small country, it has done an exceptionally good job and I compliment the Minister of State on her actions in terms of increasing the level of funding available through our aid programmes, be it international assistance, particular assistance to countries such as Mozambique, Lesotho and others or assistance provided through the UN and the EU. Ireland has done more than any other OECD country in recent years, increasing its level of aid at a greater rate than any other country. However, we can never give enough. Given the huge amounts of money coming into our Exchequer as a result of our booming economy, we must fight for those who are worse off than we are, particularly people who live on less than $5 per month. I hope the Celtic tiger will not create an "I'm all right Jack" attitude or a "keeping up with the Jones's" mentality. There is no comparison between the level of poverty in Ireland and the levels in Mozambique, Sierra Leone or Ethiopia.

If we could incorporate the sense of smell into media reports, we might succeed in eradicating world poverty. We see colour reports of people dying but if people could smell the famine, greater emphasis would be placed on eliminating famine and war throughout the world. Glossy television pictures of horrific events do not do anything for the elimination of poverty in the long term. We must not become overly critical of what is not being done but must praise what is being done throughout the world by various Governments, NGOs and people who make individual contributions to the alleviation of poverty caused by war and natural disasters.

Natural disasters are recurring and we must mobilise national and international bodies to eliminate their causes. There is no cohort of researchers in the world which could predict the imminence of natural disasters and mobilise forces to deal with that. Sufficient research is not being carried out into where problems might arise in the short term. If the Minister could raise the establishment of such a research facility within the EU, we could possibly achieve a more rapid response to these crises.

I thank the Minister for coming to the House. The more we examine and discuss the problems of poverty, the better it will be for us and those we are trying to help, the poorest of the poor, wherever they are in the world.

Mr. Ryan

I wish the issues of overseas development would move beyond the realm of party politics to consensus. We have done this on issues which, given our historical tradition, are vastly more difficult, such as Northern Ireland. We are moving in that direction regarding overseas development aid. It is not an issue on which I would like to score silly political points, as I am very good at doing.

Mrs. Taylor-Quinn

Such humility.

Mr. Ryan

I do not have a trace of it in my body, it is more cockiness than anything else. The Minister deserves some congratulation for the reassertion of the importance of ODA in our foreign policy. There have been hiccups and we will continue to argue about percentages but ODA and Ireland Aid are now seen as one of the ethical obligations we have to the rest of the world and ourselves. We will be a lesser people in terms of how we look at our problems if we decide the rest of the world can wait for help.

Senator Lanigan referred to the apparently inexorable increase in the scale and frequency of natural disasters, which seem to be a fact of life. I will return to global warming. While Governments must operate within budgets, our public finances are in such a condition that we should never say in advance we cannot provide funding. There are two reasons not to provide funding, whether it is emergency relief or, as the Minister identified, the more fundamental issue of long-term poverty alleviation. The first reason is if there is no need, which will never be the case in anyone's lifetime, and the second is if we believe there is no ability to deliver benefits from ODA. We obviously cannot endlessly supply money. However, we are nowhere near the saturation level at which we cannot find well-run development proposals in a variety of countries.

As the Minister said, the long-term solution to a disaster like the one in Mozambique is to enable countries like Mozambique to become rich and powerful enough to minimise the risk and deal with the consequences. Countries like France have had major natural disasters in recent years and have dealt with them with considerable efficiency and without panic overseas because they have the resources to do so.

I accept the figure of 0.7% of GDP as a target but it should not be a ceiling to our willingness to help. The ceiling ought to be our capacity to find agencies, bodies, proposals and systems which can use resources efficiently and effectively. I make no apologies for saying that is essentially a bottomless pit. However, it is a pit into which we can put resources, provided these conditions are met.

As the Minister knows better than I, a great deal has been written about the enormous waste of ODA resources in the past, particularly money transferred through multilateral agencies. The records of the food and agriculture organisation of the United Nations, the United Nations itself and the World Bank are wonderful arguments against ODA because they have been singularly unsuccessful. The last I read, 65% of World Bank projects had failed. Projects do not fail if people on the ground are in charge and the money is used for what it was proposed. It took a great deal of time for international agencies to achieve these conditions and the World Bank now claims to understand its previous errors. However, I am still extremely wary of multilateral development agencies. The emphasis in the priorities of Ireland Aid should be on bilateral aid, with direct collaboration between the State and successful non-governmental organisations.

I agree with the Minister that the fundamental problem is poverty. However, we must be wary of some of the utterances from multilateral agencies which assume development and growth are the same. The Indian man who won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1998, whose name I cannot remember, wrote a book which I am currently reading called Development and Freedom. He won the Nobel Prize for economics because he demonstrated, better than anyone had done for perhaps 50 years, how growth and development are not the same and that we must look at both. It is ironic that while world economic growth has been reasonably sustained in recent years, economic inequality has worsened. While the resources available on the planet, and therefore the resources available to everyone living on it, have increased dramatically, the resources available to the excluded majority are proportionately less than they were 20 years ago. Nobody disputes the importance of economic growth but it is of no benefit if it does not have in-built mechanisms to use resources to provide basic needs such as health care, literacy, sanitation etc., whether here or in Mozambique. We cannot gloss over issues of inequality by talking about growth.

Related to that is the continuing controversy about many of the structural adjustment programmes. Ethical and policy issues are involved in this because structural adjustment has been presented as no more than a rational restructuring of public finances to avoid long-term unsustainability in public expenditure. What has actually happened is that certain areas have been targeted for cutbacks, such as health care, education, literacy and so on. Many countries endeavouring to develop have undertaken more than they can sustain in these areas. However, a great deal could have been done which would not have cost too much and, with proper encouragement from multilateral agencies, could have involved not just global reductions but reorganisation and reprioritisation. This relates to the continuing reservations that I, my party and other parties have about the role of multilateral organisations, particularly the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, although they have a purpose. I am astonished at the willingness of the IMF in particular to tolerate large-scale arms expenditure in countries which are in the middle of structural adjustment programmes while at the same time not being prepared to tolerate the provision of proper basic health care, child care, child health care in particular, women's health care or to deal with basic environmental issues.

Related to the structural adjustment issue is the issue of debt, to which the Minister has adverted. The Government's position on this has been appropriately far-sighted and generous. I am glad the Minister of State is now in favour of the elimination of debt because I distinctly recollect the Minister for Finance saying here, when legislation in connection with our relations with the IMF was being debated, that he was not in favour of the elimination of debt but was in favour of debt relief. I am glad we have moved on from that, because our objective should be elimination.

The deliberate linking of painful structural adjustment to debt relief or to debt elimination is not morally sustainable, particularly if this is merely using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. I hope that the fall in the debt of Mozambique from US$5 billion to US$1 billion under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries initiative will not be achieved at the price of further suffering for the already suffering people of that country. Many NGOs argue that this is what will happen because the conditions are too painful.

I have no problem with the requirement that a rational economic policy should be pursued in any developing country. That is perfectly reasonable. However, a rational economic policy must focus on the fact that economic policy is about achieving other things. It is a necessary but not sufficient condition for development. There cannot be development in the long term without economic growth. However, economic development does not necessarily happen just because there is economic growth, particularly in very poor countries if large proportions of the population are excluded and do not have political freedom, a decent basic health care system or the freedom to work in a free labour market without conditions of slavery attached. That is why a rational economic policy must have elements of prioritisation and targeting in relation to what is to be done with the achievements of economic growth.

There are other matters that are of great importance in development and which are also related to poverty. The first of those is trade. There is a view that the world is moving towards free trade. It is doing so in the case of manufactured goods. However, the world is awash with tariff and other barriers when it comes to trade in agricultural products and other primary products. It is those barriers that prevent developing countries from using their comparative advantages in many areas to achieve the redistribution that a fair trade system would produce. That is because there are vested interests in the developed countries who resist that. One of the great disillusionments of the new Government in South Africa has been the time and struggle it has taken to achieve the sort of trading relationship it assumed would be automatic once democracy was achieved. This is true not just of South Africa but of many other countries.

There are contradictions in our policy on development. One that I have adverted to before is the national celebration we had when the largest ever fishing boat, owned by an Irish person, was launched in Norway. I do not begrudge the man who owned it any of his success. However, a good deal of the gloss was taken off that when it turned out that that fishing vessel was going to operate off the coast of Africa in order to consume resources in an African country's zone of economic interest and bring them back to an already rich continent of Europe, which has already destroyed or is in danger of destroying its own fish stocks. There is a moral question to be answered when a continent that is singularly incapable of feeding itself is exporting fish to a continent that has effectively obliterated a large part of its own fish stocks. These are issues that need to be addressed.

Senator Lanigan mentioned global warming which is related to this. It is difficult to believe that many international corporations accept that global warming is a problem. Everybody believes there is a different way of addressing the problem from the way that costs them any inconvenience. IBEC has announced that it is not in favour of carbon taxes. That does not come as a surprise. I am sure most motorists are not in favour of carbon taxes. What is undoubtedly true is that we are, as of this moment, in breach of our Kyoto commitment. I do not know what we are going to do about it. I suspect that at the back of people's minds is the idea that we might have a recession for a couple of years before we reach the target date of 2010 and in that process we will cut back a bit. However, there is no evidence of that and we are well over our Kyoto limits.

I wonder what we are going to do, because there is a legally binding agreement. Will we move to the issue of whether to cut back on our carbon dioxide production – which is what we should do – or get involved in tradable permits, which means buying the spare capacity of other countries? If there were a large number of rich countries with spare capacity who wanted to sell to us, I would not mind so much. However, the most likely place in which Western countries will buy permission to emit more carbon dioxide is among the less developed countries. What we are doing is buying their development, because if we buy what they are currently permitted to release, their permitted releases drop, and since carbon dioxide emissions so far correlate to development – technology might change this, but however well regulated they may be in countries like Sweden, they still go up with development – we are actually putting a ceiling on development in other countries in order to minimise our own inconvenience. There is a fundamental ethical issue involved there.

In the longer term, the issue of poverty, whether in Mozambique or in any of the poor countries of the world, is an issue which comes under the global heading of sustainable development. I have learned over the past number of years that where one is determines which of those two words one focuses on – we are in the category of countries which emphasises sustainability. The developing countries are interested in a form of development which is sustainable, whereas what most Western countries talk about is a way of sustaining what we have already achieved which is environmentally acceptable. There is a huge difference in priority between the two sides.

Writing the rules for the convenience of the already developed countries is not the solution to the very difficult problem of how to give the two billion people of India and China, for example, a standard of living, as we currently define it, which is equivalent to that of the average citizen of Europe. Nobody knows how to do that, because the scale of resource consumption that would be required currently to give them that standard of living would mean that every drop of oil in the world would be gone in about five years. We would have such enormous mountains of waste if those two countries had our level of consumption that there would be nowhere to put it. The Himalayas would disappear under a mountain of waste in no time at all.

There is a fundamental issue here, and it goes back to the fundamental issue that the Minister of State correctly identified, which is poverty. It involves definitions of poverty, but it does not involve us making a definition of poverty for other people. It involves us accepting that there are limits to consumption, as there are limits to growth, and that limits to consumption must apply universally. Countries like ours, at our present level of development, are quite near the limit of what can be ethically justified.

What is needed in countries like Mozambique where there are such tragedies is a capacity to respond quickly. Even though the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, is right that the response was probably quicker than ever before, the public was and is still annoyed. In Britain, in particular, public opinion was extremely annoyed at what it saw as temporising, delaying and interdepartmental wrangles. We do not have that here because we do things better but if we believe in development and consistency in policy, we cannot talk about development and, for instance, sustain the trade barriers of which I have spoken. Nor can we talk about development and not accept that the debt of many poor countries was unfairly landed upon them, is an unfair burden, must be eliminated, and we should deal with the future of borrowing and make sure that it never happens again.

There are two other issues, the first of which is that we cannot tell the rest of the world that we are concerned about its development and still set up a sophisticated arms marketing industry in an entity like the European Union to compete ruthlessly to try to persuade as many of those countries as possible to buy as much arms as possible from us. There cannot be an ethical development policy where there is an arms export policy. In general there should not be sales of arms to developing countries. No country that wishes to have a trading relationship with the EU or wishes to be a member of the EU should be under any illusions about that. The other issue, which is one about which we must be careful, is that if we believe in development, we and rich countries generally must look at the question of immigration.

In terms of strategy and fundamental policy, we should be very wary of ideological certainties. Contrary to what many people think, I spent most of my adult political life trying to argue against the ideological certainties of the left because I never subscribed to them. I am a pragmatist. I believe in what works and much of what has made Europe a civilised society has come from the left, but it is not based on ideological certainty. We need to be equally wary now of the ideological certainties of the right. The belief that economic growth is synonymous with development may be fashionable but it is wrong. There are two tools of development, growth and the use of growth, and we need to emphasise in international fora the importance of the second.

Mr. Lydon

It was back in early February that the government of Mozambique launched a provisional appeal for emergency humanitarian assistance following severe flooding which initially affected mainly the cities of Maputo and Mutala. After that, the flooding affected much of the provinces of Maputo, Gaza and Inhambane in the south as well as central portions of Mozambique, namely, the provinces of Sofala and Man cia. These were the worst floods in 50 years and they resulted in over 70 deaths. They left thousands homeless and more than 100,000 acres of food crops were affected. In some provinces 30% of the livestock was lost. Commercial activities were severely disrupted and damage to infrastructure was extensive. Urgent repairs were required to roads, bridges, railways and electricity networks.

It is important to remember the damage that was done. One sees it on television and the next time one turns on the television there is another tragedy somewhere else – there is one in Ethiopia now, for instance – and, therefore, one forgets about it. Many of the affected areas of the cities of Maputo and Mutala and the provinces of Maputo, Gaza, Inhambane and, to a lesser extent, Sofala were without access to safe drinking water, health care and other basic services. Most of the population in need of humanitarian assistance were displaced people who had to be housed in temporary shelters. Of the 300,000 people affected by the floods, 60,000 were children under five. Inadequate sanitary conditions significantly increased the number of communicable diseases and the risk of outbreaks of diseases such as malaria and cholera. The stagnant flood water and the heavy concentration of people in temporary shelters drastically increased the incidence of malaria. Outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases such as measles and meningitis were also major threats.

An estimated 15,300 of the 300,000 persons affected were pregnant women, of whom 4,600 were expected to deliver within the next three months. These women require special attention. We all remember the scene of the woman being rescued from the tree where she gave birth to a child. Even under normal circumstances, Mozambique has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, that is, 1,559 per 100,000 live births. Health services in the affected areas were overwhelmed by the number of patients and are working beyond capacity. Drug stocks began to run out and there was a serious shortage of health workers.

Food is an essential basic need and a high priority in terms of emergency requirements. The excessive rainfall followed by unprecedented flooding in the southern and central provinces caused tremendous loss of standing crops and livestock. Most of the cultivated land in the southern region was affected. About two-thirds of the cultivated areas, that is, about 100,000 hectares, have possibly been lost, totalling 30,000 hectares in Maputo and 70,000 hectares in Gaza. There have been losses of perhaps as much as 30,000 hectares in Sofala provinces and as much as 20,000 hectares in Mancia and Tete provinces. This potential loss is already twice as high as any previous loss recorded due to floods. The situation may seriously affect subsequent crop planting in the region, in addition to diminishing the quality of farm food stocks. The floods have killed livestock and destroyed farms, homesteads and roads.

A substantial number of the population affected by the floods were already living below the poverty line and were considered to be highly vulnerable in the context of food security. The damage to the national roads and bridges limited access to the affected population by road.

Most of the affected areas were without access to safe drinking and sanitation facilities and, although water supplies in the cities of Maputo and Mutala are back to normal in most cases, there is still much work to be done in the valleys of Incomati and Limpopo. Sanitation was a problem in all flooded areas, increasing the number of cases of diarrhoea and other communicable diseases and the risk of a cholera outbreak. A few confirmed cases of cholera were reported in the provinces of Maputo and Sofala. The mosquito friendly environment caused by stagnant flood water and poor sanitation, combined with the high concentration of people in displaced settlements significantly increased the number of malaria cases. Reports show that the instance of malaria was at least three times higher in flooded areas than in normal conditions.

Some 100,000 people of the provinces of Maputo and Gaza were displaced from their villages which were damaged by severe flooding. Their property and dwellings became submerged under water or were swept away by currents. When I say that 100,000 people were displaced, one must try to imagine that it is like an Irish town being wiped out and left under water, with everybody having to leave and a danger of disease. I do not even what to raise the fact that children will be unable to go to school or the collapse of communications etc.

As of the end of March, about 15,000 children under the age of five were malnourished in camps for flood survivors in Mozambique's southern province of Gaza. The direct and immediate impact of malnutrition upon children is vulnerability to diseases, while physical and mental stunting are longer-term effects. Those children are also likely not to want to take food, which unfortunately results in death.

Last night or today a tropical storm bearing heavy rain was expected to reach the far north of Mozambique and, therefore, the trouble is not over by a long shot. This storm has already reached the northern parts of the Mozambique Channel between Mozambique and Madagascar. It is expected to intensify before hitting the Mozambique coastline and heavy rain is expected as far south as Vilanculos. Fortunately, downpours are not expected over the southern parts recently ravaged by cyclone Eline. The storm is moving at about 15 miles per hour, but one must remember that Mozambique is still battling to recover from the worst floods in living memory.

The Minister said the progression of cyclone Hudah was being monitored. After demolishing almost every building in Antalaha in north eastern Madagascar on Monday, it headed straight for flood ravaged Mozambique. Although weakened after passing over northern Madagascar, the cyclone will strengthen as it passes over the Mozambique Channel and could deluge areas of Mozambique still struggling to recover from the two other storms which hit the area over the past two months. Two people were reported dead on Monday in Antalaha where thousands of residents were left without power and telephone services. Antalaha was the worst hit area. Most buildings not made of concrete were totally destroyed and many others were seriously damaged. An entire neighbourhood of wooden houses was flattened.

Cyclone Hudah drifted off the north west coast of Madagascar on Monday after making landfall near Antalaha 12 hours earlier. The storm packed average winds of 62 miles per hour with gusts reaching 92 miles per hour on Monday evening. The cyclone, now downgraded to a tropical storm, was located over the Mozambique Channel on Tuesday, moving towards Mozambique.

We should try to imagine this in the context of Bray over the past few days where there was a minor storm and when a construction platform with oil which was anchored off the coast lost its moorings and drifted to the shore, causing difficulty for the people in the town. However, houses were not swept away and the people were not subject to disease and have not had to cope with floods for the past two months. The residents of northern Madagascar said cyclone Hudah had caused significant damage to property, with the coast being battered by waves up to 26 feet high. Many of those whose flimsy thatched-roofed homes were destroyed in the earlier cyclones had only recently managed to rebuild them. The road between Antalaha and its airport was cleared on Monday so that relief supplies could be airlifted to the town in the following days. However, the highways to the area, which is in the centre of Madagascar's vanilla growing region, were cut-off while the seas remain too rough to ferry emergency rations by boat.

The coastal town of Cap Est was flattened and the coastal town of Maroantsetra was also flooded. Cyclone Hudah struck the same region which tropical storm Gloria passed over a month ago. Gloria flooded rice fields and killed thousands of people in flash floods and mud slides, forcing residents to depend on food aid from relief agencies. Two weeks before tropical storm Gloria struck, cyclone Eline destroyed the homes and crops of more than 40,000 people on much of the eastern coast of the Indian Ocean island.

The death toll from the earlier cyclones in Madagascar has yet to be determined. Many of the areas effected lack efficient communications and have minimal health facilities. These cyclones, together with the heavy downpours which are typical of the region's rainy season, have cost hundreds of thousands of people to lose their homes, belongings and crops, not only in Mozambique, but in Madagascar, Zimbabwe and several other southern African countries since February of this year. The continuing bad weather has washed away one harvest and has left the ground too soggy for the March-April planting. The next planting is scheduled for September with the harvest being six to eight weeks later. The people of the countries worst affected by the floods will need to rely on basic food support from outside aid until then.

The sugar crop in Mozambique has been affected. They had a target of producing 310,000 tonnes of sugar by 2005 which will not now be possible as the sugar production area has been flooded. The Mafambisse sugar company in the Sofala district of Dondo will suffer a deficit of 10%. The Xinavane Company in the Maputo province will also suffer a production loss of 10%. The Maragra sugar company near the north of the Incomati river lost all its work of the last two and a half years.

Mozambique's cereal harvest has been reduced by more than 30%. Southern provinces inundated by floods account for 13% of total cereal output in the country and those effected in the central region for a further 20%. Livestock losses for the three southern provinces are provisionally estimated at 13% of total cattle production.

The Minister of State in her speech said people are amazed by the sheer scale of the devastation which took everyone by surprise. She also said that we are providing much aid, which is welcome. I also welcome what she said about our embassy in Maputo and that we were able to provide information while embassy staff and the medical expert provided special briefings to the other donors, such as the World Food Programme, Médecins Sans Frontières and Save the Children Fund.

I am not being critical of the Minister of State, as I think we are blessed to have her – her commitment is unprecedented and sincere – but she said that "already £1 million has been reallocated to be used for reconstruction and recovery activities". That is a lot of money. However, on Sunday morning my wife and I went to look at a four-bedroomed house selling for £700,000 and a five-bedroomed house selling for £1.5 million in my constituency. I do not mind the people who are selling or buying them, but what will £1 million, the price of a house in south Dublin, do for reconstruction? I ask the Minister to besiege and to beseech the Cabinet to increase the aid we give to these people. I know that giving aid is just one aspect of the matter and I am glad we are recommending the wiping out of the debt.

The statement by the Minister of State that the Government has been vocal in calling for accelerated debt relief and that there is a compelling case for the cancellation of all Mozambique's external debt is very welcome. I hope we push for this because there are countries, especially in Africa, which simply cannot cope with the natural disasters which have effected them in recent years. If we have any modicum of Christianity we must wipe out the debts of these countries as well as starting a rehabilitation and reconstruction programme. I again ask the Minister of State to beat the Cabinet into giving her more money as this is a very worthy cause.

Mr. Farrell

I congratulate the Minister of State on the wonderful work she is doing. She is certainly a hands-on Minister and is not hiding her light under a bushel. She says what needs to be done and what is being done. I also congratulate our embassy staff in Maputo. I spent a month in Mozambique during the elections and I know that part of the country very well. The people there are lovely, but the level of poverty is unbelievable. We went to a town as big, perhaps, as Lucan was 20 years ago where there was no water, electricity or telephones. The roads were dirt tracks. At one time they were tarred, but they were destroyed during the civil war.

The country endured the most horrific civil war. One man told us he had four brothers who were forced from their home and escaped in different directions. When he returned to his home a week later the heads of three of his brothers were on the branches of trees in front of the house. The stories of suffering during the civil war which the people told us through an interpreter would make one's blood run cold.

One night we went to what was a big hotel and walked through it with nobody to be seen. All the doors were wide open and outside was a lovely beach. Our army driver said we would get something to eat there. All they had was fish and chips, which was considered a great meal. The hotel must have had over 100 bedrooms in its heyday. The hotel owner went to the kitchen where he struggled to cook fish and chips for three. We bought four beers and two minerals and then he was sold out of everything.

The poverty in Mozambique is unbelievable. People live in bamboo huts and build little chapels in the wild. School consists of a schoolmaster teaching children in the open. It was amazing to see how flooded was the country. When I was there the women had to walk four or five miles to a swamp to get water, which one could not drink. Their suffering was unbelievable. It was easy for the floods to cause significant damage because any storm would have blown away the wooden shanties in which they lived. Roads and land were washed away because the soil was sand based.

Land mines pose a difficult problem in Mozambique. I never saw more people limping around on makeshift wooden crutches similar to those used by World War 1 veterans when I was a gasúr. They had lost limbs in land mine explosions. We were warned not to go off the beaten track on any account, even by a yard, because the countryside was riddled with land mines. I wonder whether the flooding will ease or exacerbate that problem. Despite the fact that the land mines were buried, so much land was washed away they could have accumulated in land banks when the flood waters abated. Will they be more dangerous now or will the water have rendered them harmless? This issue should be examined because even more damage could be caused.

The Government must be congratulated because it was on the ball and was not found wanting. As Senator Lydon said, it was able to assist aid agencies as a result of the land survey which was carried out by the embassy staff and advise them on what was best to do. I do not know what that equates to in monetary terms but it was valuable. We sometimes think only of the money that is donated but the advice and assistance that the Irish embassy gave to other agencies when they briefed them before they went into various areas so that they knew what to bring with them was worth millions of pounds. People sometimes forget to include that in the equation when they refer to aid.

The emergency allocation of £160,000 was significant in Mozambican terms. One could have a large amount of Mozambican currency but it would buy very little. The shops there have nothing and the poverty beggars belief. The Minister of State outlined that the key issue in preventing the loss of life and devastation caused by natural disasters is the elimination of poverty.

Mozambicans are very intelligent and hard working people. I was amazed when I saw television pictures of some of the areas which I had visited. The people had progressed from living in bamboo huts to living in a better type of wooden building, yet it is only three years since the elections took place there. They are a very energetic people but they have suffered at the hands of God and man over the past 20 years or so and we must do everything in our power to help them.

I was pleased to give a generous donation to one aid agency because I knew the Mozambican people so well. I appeal to those who can afford a few pounds to give it to Mozambique. They would do so if they lived in the country for a while. When I was there we went into a hotel bedroom and there were three beds in the room but I never saw anything as bad as them, and I grew up during the 1930s when times were bad and people had poor houses. I asked the hotel landlady if there was any water. She said that there was and came back to the room a few minutes later with a bucket of water in which one would not wash one's hands. I slept in a tent and I was happier there than in any other accommodation which I had seen. We eventually found accommodation in a school miles away, which was reasonable in Mozambican terms, but if such accommodation were provided in Ireland, there would be an outcry. However, after what we had endured at the beginning of our trip, it was the equivalent of a Grade A hotel.

I congratulate the Government on playing a leading role in addressing Mozambique's debt problems. It is easy to pay off debt if one is earning a wage. Mozambicans have no income because there is no work but if they were given a chance they would take it. There is great tourism potential as the country has a beautiful coastline. This will be developed but aid must be provided. I appeal to Governments to write off the debt. It is grossly unjust and unfair to ask Mozambique to repay it because it cannot afford to do so. When Mozambique borrowed the money it was a reasonably well off country but it has suffered immensely.

When I was there I visited a little hospital with another lady who was also an observer at the elections. We were sent to the outpatient department which comprised a little stone shed with a wooden roof. There was a stretcher in it on which there was only one yard of white cloth and a brown mattress, and the lady was put on it. I could talk about the poverty and suffering for weeks because it touched my heart.

I congratulate the Minister of State, her officials, the embassy staff and the aid workers in Mozambique on their good work. Money has been allocated but the work of the embassy and the Minister of State's staff, including the land survey, which is not taken into account, is even more valuable. I congratulate them on having the foresight to carry out the land survey. These actions are forgotten by people but I pay tribute to the embassy staff and the Minister of State for the wonderful job they have done.

Mr. Mooney

All the kudos aimed in the direction of the Minister of State is well merited. She is following a proud tradition in Iveagh House of Ministers of State with responsibility for overseas development and Third World development programmes. We have a proud record in that area and I am sure the Minister of State will agree that the precedents set since Ireland became a more wealthy country are acknowledged throughout the world. I would not like her to leave this House thinking that the commendations were insincere; they are not. Whatever else the Minister may do in her political life, her legacy in Iveagh House will stand the test of time.

Ireland has a unique role to play in Third World development aid, especially in the context of Mozambique and other countries in Africa that seem to be constantly devastated by natural disasters of one sort or other, yet the political bureaucracy does not move fast enough when these disasters occur. Despite the efforts of the Minister and her colleagues at Council of Ministers meetings or crisis meetings in relation to emergency aid, something always goes wrong. In the case of Mozambique, for example, it took a long time before aid eventually got to that country. Looking at the events on television and from what I read in the media, it seemed that only a small number of helicopters were provided by the South African Government. Despite the immense resource of prosperity and economic power in the European Union, we appeared to be impotent in terms of moving quickly to avert the crisis.

If one compares the lack of alacrity and acceleration of decision making in that area to the decision-making process in terms of making war on that continent, there seems to be no difficulty in arranging to have the most modern armaments shipped at short notice. Troop movements and all the other paraphernalia of war can be mobilised very quickly but when it comes to providing basic aid to people, it does not seem to work. We had a similar example of that this week in Ethiopia. Why is it that when people are screaming for the most basic of human needs, such as water, we have a problem of logistics? We do not seem to be able to remove the logjam. If the Minister of State were to do nothing else but shout from the rooftops in the way she has done in other policy areas, she would be doing a good day's work. If I were to say only one thing in this debate it would be to impress upon the Minister the frustrations that all of us who have a humanitarian streak feel when we see the pathetic pictures on our television screens, that we would like her to act on our behalf and, if necessary, do what Khrushchev did in a famous incident in the United Nations, take her shoe off and bang it on the table to get people to move.

In terms of the good news, I was delighted to find out that the baby who was born in the tree in Mozambique is well and was visited by President Joaquim Chissano recently who said that the Government would pay for her education and a house for her family. A lovely quote from the President read as follows: "When I looked at her mother's happy face I could see that she's a woman full of hope and determination, reflecting the image of Mozambican women who know that it is possible to overcome their difficulties." That statement encapsulates the progressive, positive attitude of these people towards this most calamitous of disasters that befell them in recent months, following an equally calamitous civil war, out of which they were just beginning to reconstruct their country. The baby's name is Rositha and her mother, Sofia, said she never expected to talk to the President in her lifetime. On giving birth in the tree, Sofia, who is 23 years old and has two other children, said that it was not very difficult. That must be the understatement of the year. Men have no conception of what it is like to give birth, and I could see the reaction on the face of my own wife if I told her that giving birth on top of a tree was not difficult. However, there are approximately half a million displaced people in 121 camps across Mozambique. For the media, the story has moved on to another disaster in Ethiopia, but what has happened in Mozambique is still very real to the people of that country.

The Minister of State is to be complimented because I have no doubt that Ireland was in the forefront of ensuring that the people of Mozambique would not continue to be crippled by the overwhelming debt they incurred as a result of trying to rebuild their country. The world reacted with alacrity in this instance, and that should be acknowledged. Mozambique hopes to be able to speed up the rebuilding of flood-damaged infrastructure as a result of the announcement that the country's huge debts have been suspended. I understand creditor Governments have postponed further repayments pending a final deal to completely cancel Mozambique's debt and that creditors will meet in June to discuss a final plan. I am not sure if the Minister of State will be directly involved in these discussions; presumably she will represent this country. I am sure it will be a happy day for her to be in a position to sign off on something that many people have sought, not just in terms of Mozambique but the entire Third World debt burden.

In that context, we should acknowledge the outstanding work that has been done by Bono and his colleagues in the music industry. We tend to patronise those celebrities who, for one reason or other, find themselves in the public eye over and above what their natural talent justifies. For example, Posh Spice and David Beckham are constantly in the news but that has nothing to do with Beckham's football ability. Bono has been in the news on a number of occasions, usually to do with Mozambique's internal and external political difficulties. I am not an aficionado of U2 and their music. I acknowledge the great contribution they have made to modern music, but what Bono and his colleagues in the international music industry have done in this instance is to be commended. The Minister of State would be the first to acknowledge that despite the best efforts of politicians to get themselves on the front pages when it comes to the issue of world debt, it sometimes needs the catalyst of an international celebrity such as Bono to bring the issue to the forefront. The late Princess of Wales, for example, highlighted the landmines issue, which had lain dormant for many years despite the best efforts of politicians to put it on the agenda. I hope that the collective contributions of politicians such as the Minister and celebrities such as Bono will result in at least the beginning of an era of relative prosperity for the people of Mozambique and the wider Third World community.

I understand Mozambique needs aid for another three months. The deputy transport Minister, Antonio Fernando, said that the extent of the damage caused by floods to the country's social and economic infrastructure, coupled with the rains which are still falling in several parts of the country causing further damage, will necessitate further aid. He said the Mozambican Government is working in co-operation with the donors to assess the extent of the damage. He also stated that a further substantial reconstruction will only be planned after a meeting between the government and the donor community, which is scheduled to take place in Rome at the end of this month. I presume the Minister of State will attend that meeting. Mr. Fernando also said that Mozambique wants to persuade the international community that what it needs now, confronted with the magnitude of the disaster, are donations, not loans, to rebuild its infrastructure. That is an important distinction. The Minister of State alluded to that in her opening remarks, and I want to again acknowledge the efforts she is mak ing, admittedly in a looser fiscal environment than some of her predecessors have enjoyed, to prise more money from the Minister for Finance. The fact that she has succeeded so far and obviously will continue to succeed is a tribute to her lobbying efforts in this regard. I assure the Minister that she has the full support not only of all Members of this House but of the wider community outside it.

I understand that community aid received so far by the National Disasters Management Institute has consisted of 40 helicopters, 15 planes, 182 boats, US$8.7 million worth of various equipment, US$2 million in foodstuffs, US$790,000 worth of medicine and US$1.379 million in cash. Those figures look impressive but they are but a drop in the ocean. I know the Minister's priority will be to ensure that there is an increased flood of donations into Mozambique. Meanwhile aid agencies, using 37 helicopters, are continuing to bring relief to thousands still affected and left homeless by the floodwaters.

The Mozambican health minister has warned that the threat of disease has not yet passed and that is an important aspect to remember. It is interesting and salutary to note that Mozambique, despite this disaster, is undergoing a process of rapid socio-political, economic and institutional transformation after 16 years of searing civil war.

Mozambique has impressive natural resources. It possesses rich land, marine and mineral resources. Almost 70% of the territory is covered by dense savannah and secondary forests and approximately 45% of it has potential for agriculture. There are also extensive wetland systems along the coast and coral reefs offshore in the north and south. Important reserves of sub-surface resources include minerals, coal and natural gas. Mozambique has all this plus an estimated population of 16.5 million which is expected to grow at a rate of 3% until the end of this century. Mozambique is the poorest country in the world but all of these facts point to the reality that it can lift itself up, given the opportunities being presented to it by Ireland, through the efforts of the Minister, and by other donor countries in the light of this disaster. It can change from being a country with the lowest per capita GNP and GDP to a medium sized economy. Perhaps it can become one of the most prosperous countries in the African continent and the wider world in the long term. The statistics I have outlined and its natural resources strongly indicate that that can be done. Mozambique now needs the full and active support of the international community. In the light of what the Minister of State has said here, I have no doubt that Ireland will continue to play a full role in that regard.

Regarding the decision-making process, I appreciate the difficulties that the Minister of State must face when sitting around a table with ministers and dealing with bureaucracy and red tape. I know from watching her and from the style in which she does things that she finds it frustrating to be at the negotiating table. Ireland and the wider world will cheer her from the sidelines while she continues to operate in the independent style that we have become accustomed to. At the end of the day it is achievements that matter, not how it is done. The fact that something can be achieved and quickly, in areas where natural disasters descend upon people, is the kernel of this matter. We can have any amount of talk, paperwork, projects and theories but it is what happens on the ground and how help is transferred from A to B that matters. I wish the Minister of State continued success in her efforts and I can assure her that she has the full support of this House.

Sitting suspended at 12.45 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.

Seanad Éireann debate - Wednesday, 5 Apr 2000