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Foreign Policy

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 26 January 2022

Wednesday, 26 January 2022

Questions (5, 6, 7)

Mary Lou McDonald

Question:

5. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the implementation of Global Ireland: Ireland's Global Footprint to 2025. [61496/21]

View answer

Mick Barry

Question:

6. Deputy Mick Barry asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the implementation of Global Ireland: Ireland's Global Footprint to 2025. [3617/22]

View answer

Seán Haughey

Question:

7. Deputy Seán Haughey asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the implementation of Global Ireland: Ireland's Global Footprint to 2025. [3618/22]

View answer

Oral answers (16 contributions)

I propose to takes Questions Nos. 5 to 7, inclusive, together.

The Government continues to implement Global Ireland: Ireland's Global Footprint to 2025. Despite the constraints of the pandemic, considerable progress has continued to be made, as set out in the Global Ireland Progress Report published in May 2021. This includes: a further significant expansion in our network of missions and agency offices; new strategies for IDA Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland; our success in securing a seat on the United Nations Security Council; and support for the cultural sector, including for the new Irish Arts Centre which I was pleased to be able to dedicate in New York. Since the publication of that report, further progress has been achieved in a number of areas and more work is planned for the year ahead.

The Government has approved the opening of embassies in Dakar, Senegal and Tehran and of consulates general in Toronto, Lyon and Miami. A new office is also being opened in San Francisco by Tourism Ireland, and IDA Ireland is appointing representatives in Israel and Argentina. A strategy to guide Ireland's relations with Latin America and the Caribbean will be launched on 15 February.

As the House will be aware, as a result of the pandemic it was not possible to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in the traditional way last year, with most events moving online. We hope that it may be possible to resume some in-person events this year, depending on public health developments, which remain the most important consideration. This year will mark the 13th Tourism Ireland Global Greening, which saw a record 725 sites and landmarks in 71 countries take part in 2021.

The Government is currently preparing a new trade and investment strategy to advance Ireland's trade and investment goals, which will see us sustainably grow and diversify our export markets, including for our SME sector, and develop and expand our foreign direct investment, FDI, base. We are also continuing to invest in developing new markets for Irish food - 2021 saw Minister-led virtual trade missions to Asia, Africa, the EU, the United Kingdom and the United States. It is hoped that in-person missions can recommence, when it is safe to do so, in 2022.

Ireland is playing an active role on the UN Security Council, leading efforts to secure humanitarian assistance in Syria and achieving an agreement on peacekeeping transitions. We have also sought to highlight the dreadful conflict in Ethiopia and its humanitarian consequences. In September, I chaired a meeting of the UN Security Council on the issue of climate and security. We will continue work on this issue. In budget 2022, the Government increased our overseas development assistance, ODA, budget by €140 million, bringing Ireland's investment in ODA to over €1 billion for the first time.

We can take a little more time on these as there are not as many questions. I call Deputy McDonald.

Repeated references to Covid-19 in the Global Ireland progress report reaffirm the reality that in our interdependent world, no one is safe from Covid-19 until everyone is safe. A motion calling on the Government to immediately support a trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, TRIPS, waiver on Covid-19 vaccines was passed by the Seanad last month. Throughout the pandemic, political leaders have correctly argued that we need to trust the science and listen to medical experts and clinicians. Nevertheless, the Taoiseach's Government has set its face against the arguments of the WHO and so many experts on delivering vaccine equity. Equally unjust is the European Commission blocking the introduction of a TRIPS waiver on Covid-19 vaccines and technology at the WTO's TRIPS council.

A doctor living in my constituency wrote to me last week, reflecting on how appreciative she is to live in a country where a Covid-19 vaccine is readily available but saying that the arrival of the Omicron variant highlighted both the injustice and the real and remaining public health risk of global vaccine inequity. She also noted that more than 100 companies across Africa, Asia and Latin America have the capacity to produce mRNA vaccines. The proposal for a TRIPS waiver to remove barriers to vaccine production in the global south has the support of more than 100 countries, including the United States, yet EU governments continue to oppose the waiver. On my behalf and on behalf of my doctor constituent, and so many others, I ask the Taoiseach to formally back the waiver and encourage the European Union forcefully to do likewise.

Global Ireland: Ireland's Global Footprint to 2025 was launched in 2018 and is a plan to expand and deepen Ireland's international presence and influence and generally to bring about greater engagement by Ireland in global affairs. Significant progress has been made in implementing the plan, as we have heard, and many new initiatives have been undertaken. New diplomatic missions have been opened and, as we know, Ireland won a seat on the UN Security Council and held the presidency of that council in September of last year. As a member of the UN Security Council we have highlighted our proud tradition of peacekeeping and strengthening conflict prevention.

Included in the initiative is the bid by Ireland to host the America's Cup in 2024. I understand a due diligence analysis by EY has been undertaken in this regard. Where stands this bid now and when might a Government decision on the matter be taken? I should also point out that since the initiative was launched, the international environment has changed significantly. Covid-19 is of course one of the factors in that regard. Will the Taoiseach confirm that a mid-term review of the strategy has commenced, given recent global developments?

Global Ireland: Ireland's Global Footprint to 2025 puts much emphasis on our culture, arts and heritage but most of its initiatives are essentially about punting our reputation around the world. I am not saying there is anything wrong with them but we are not doing what we should be doing, which is to nurture and support those who produce the art, literature, music, film and so on.

We have been talking about wage rates in this country. The two lowest earning sectors in our economy comprise retail workers and arts workers. They endure miserably low pay and most have no job security because they have episodic employment. In many cases they live in poverty. It is interesting that both of those groups were the worst hit during Covid-19 but we needed them most. We do not give the support to the people in arts and culture, although we are quite happy to punt our reputation around the world. We spend one sixth of the EU average on arts and culture in this country and there has been no real significant increase lately. There was a little increase during the Covid-19 pandemic but it is not anything to the level we see elsewhere.

Let us match words with deeds if we want to support our fantastic and rich heritage and the creative talent that exists in the country. Let us give those people decent incomes and employment security. We should end the scandal in the film industry where nobody has a job but we spend hundreds of millions of euro there every year. Performers do not get royalties because they are forced onto buyout contracts when they work on films and television productions. Let us match the words about culture with deeds to support the artists, technicians and performers in arts and culture.

Deputy McDonald spoke about vaccine sharing, the TRIPS waiver and so forth. I argue that the European Union has been the leader across the globe in respect of vaccine donation. It is the largest donor, ahead of the United States, Russia, India and any other country or continent for that matter. It has made an extraordinary effort not to have any export bans at any stage, despite some efforts in the early stages of the pandemic. We might remember all the rows with AstraZeneca and all of that. I pushed hard for there to be no export bans because of the global supply chain that goes into making vaccines.

The EU and its constituent member states is the leading donor, having committed €3.2 billion for the equitable distribution of vaccines. Out of 2 billion doses produced since December 2020, the European Union has exported over 1.7 billion doses to 165 countries. Some of those were countries that were contracted to companies manufacturing within Europe. Ireland is committing 5 million doses to COVAX and 1.3 million vaccines have been delivered to low-income countries.

It is the production that is the game changer.

Yes. I will come to that.

It is not the charity element.

The TRIPS waiver itself does not deal with that.

I am aware of that but it is a prerequisite.

It would never have provided the magic solution that was suggested when it was advocated. There is no single or simple answer except that we must improve production capacity within Africa. The European Union is uniquely the global organisation that will do just that. Africa currently imports 99% of its vaccines and 94% of its medicines. That is unsustainable and we must work within the EU with our partners in Africa. There is a summit coming up and the European Union, through technology transfers in the short term, wants to deal with vaccine shortages. It must also deal with distribution and logistics within many of the countries. The question will no longer be about production or supply for the remainder of 2022 but rather distribution and getting vaccines into the arms of people. That is something on which the European Union is committed to engaging with African partners on, with an overall package for Africa. I am pushing strongly as Taoiseach that the European Council, along with the European Commission, should advocate a specific package for Africa in the context of Covid-19 and in the more medium term.

Irish Aid and other organisations must refocus in the short term to help with the vaccine effort in the countries we help or support more generally across food, health and so on. There is an interdependence as nobody will be safe until everybody is safe. I think the production challenges are resolved and the imperative now is to strengthen co-ordination with partners to address the question of distribution and the logistical challenges of getting vaccines.

It is interesting that in eastern Europe, where there has been access to vaccines, uptake is still at 50% or 60% in some cases. It illustrates my point that a stage will come when it will not just be a question of supply but of getting vaccinations done.

In the poor south, it is a question of production.

To be fair, Africa has suffered worst in respect of vaccine sharing and access to vaccines.

That must be dealt with. Given Ireland's history of pharmaceutical production and capacity, we should be lending any knowledge we have in order to achieve that, and to help Africa with access to vaccines and developing manufacturing capacity. Work is under way in South Africa and Senegal, and the European Commission is going to-----

We need a waiver for that.

No, we do not. The Commission will help to develop the capacity and the technology transfers to enable them to produce on home soil, but this takes time. In the interim, we must get the vaccine supplied to Africa as quickly as we possibly can.

Deputy Haughey raised a number of issues. There will be a mid-term review in respect of the strategy. On the Security Council, I commend the work of the Irish ambassador to the UN, H.E. Ms Geraldine Byrne Nason, and the team there. I was delighted to meet with them in September. I was struck by the idealism and commitment of the young civil servants working on the Irish team in the UN in New York. It would give one hope for the future of this country that we have such quality people working on that UN Security Council brief, and learning so much. They are working on some very difficult issues, from Syria to Ethiopia, and having an impact at the highest levels of international diplomacy. We must continue to resource that and work very hard in our presidency of the United Nations Security Council.

I take Deputy Boyd Barrett's point. Ireland's reputation is one of the countries with the highest numbers of recipients of the Nobel prize in literature and per capita I believe we have the highest number of Booker prize winners. We support the arts and there has been an increase this year. I am aware that the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin is working to try to create more embedded structures to support artists. The first rationale for this is to try to develop creativity within our own country and within our own society, and to prioritise the arts and the flowering of the arts so that young people would aspire to be artists, writers, performers, musicians and so on. We need to create a sustainable base for that. While I would not understate the progress that has been made in this regard over the decades, more can always be done. We must also take lessons from the Covid-19 experience.

I recall organising the first Global Irish Economic Forum in 2009 when I was the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The people of the Irish diaspora who were involved in senior positions across the globe came back in and did a bit of work over that weekend. They came back with the idea that the most important calling card for Ireland is its creativity and, dare I say it, its prowess in the arts and creativity. These were people who may not ordinarily have agreed with Deputy Boyd Barrett's financial or economic positions, and it is interesting that this came from them. That has never left me.

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