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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 30 Oct 1980

Vol. 323 No. 7

Supplementary Estimates, 1980 . - Vote 47: Foreign Affairs .

: I move:

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £291,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 1980, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and of certain services administered by that Office, including certain grants-in-aid.

With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle I would propose to discuss the Supplementary Estimates for Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation together.

The Supplementary Estimate for Foreign Affairs is required to meet additional expenditure on five subheads of the Vote — travel and incidental expenses, Post Office services, repatriation and maintenance of Irish citizens abroad, cultural relations with other countries and contributions to bodies in Ireland for the furtherance of international relations. The total of the additional sums required, £885,000 is partly offset by savings elsewhere in the Vote amounting to £320,000 and by an anticipated increase of £274,000 in appropriations-in-aid. The net additional sum required for the five subheads is, therefore, £291,000.

The increase required for travel and incidental expenses arises for a number of reasons which could not be adequately foreseen when the original provision was agreed. In addition to travelling costs this subhead also provides for communications expenses for our missions abroad. The cost of these services is constantly on the increase and this is a factor over which my Department can exercise no control. I am of course fully aware of the necessity to exercise maximum economies in the expenditure areas covered by this subhead but my Department must meet their unavoidable commitments in terms of mandatory attendance at meetings and of providing necessary facilities in missions abroad including new missions. The additional sum now sought is the minimum required to enable these commitments to be adequately met for the remainder of the current financial year.

The additional £100,000 required for Post Office services is for the most part due to the delay in the receipt of accounts because of the postal strike last year.

It is difficult to estimate accurately the provision required for repatriation and maintenance of distressed Irish citizens abroad. On the basis of the expenditure so far this year it is expected that an additional £9,000 will be required to meet the demands of this subhead. Much of the moneys advanced from this subhead are recovered and this is reflected in increased receipts in appropriations-in-aid.

The additional sum proposed for subhead E, cultural relations with other countries, is required for the winding-up of the affairs of "A Sense of Ireland", the Festival of the Arts of Ireland which took place in London in February and March this year. Deputies will, I think, agree that this festival was very successful, comprising as it did over 90 exhibitions and performances of music, theatre, ballet, films, lectures and seminars by participants from all over Ireland at over 40 London venues. Contributions towards the festival were forthcoming from bodies and individuals in both Ireland and Britain. The festival was enthusiastically endorsed by the Government and can be said to have played a significant part in promoting Anglo-Irish relations. It will be appreciated that it was difficult for the organisers to anticipate accurately exact costings of a festival of this magnitude and the further sum now sought is to cover such unforeseen costs.

The £1,000 required for subhead G is to enable payment of the grant of £1,000 for 1980 to be paid to the Irish United Nations Association. Because of accounting requirements it was not possible for my Department to pay the 1979 grant of £1,000 last year and it is therefore necessary to make two payments in the current year. The contribution to the association continues to be at the level of £1,000 per annum.

The total of the sums required for the five subheads will, as I have said, be offset to some extent by a saving in subhead A — salaries. This saving arises in the main because of vacancies which were unavoidably left unfilled for a large portion of the current year. It was not possible to forecast at the beginning of the year with any degree of accuracy where or to what extent vacancies would arise in missions abroad.

The expenditure excesses are also partly offset by an anticipated increase in appropriations-in-aid. Receipts have been greater than provided for because of the increase in the rates of the passport and other consular fees which came into effect at the beginning of June this year and also because of a heavier demand on these services.

With regard to the Supplementary Estimate for the Vote for International Co-operation, Deputies will see that this is for a token sum of £10 to enable transfers to be made between subheads within the original provision for this Vote. The approval of the Dáil is required before expenditure from grant-in-aid subheads can be made in excess of the amounts originally provided.

Subhead G of the Vote for International Co-operation for 1980 concerns payments for the benefit of developing countries arising from our membership of the European Economic Community. In the 1980 Estimate, £3,733,500 was provided for the purpose of meeting Ireland's contribution to the Fourth and Fifth European Development Funds, established under the Lomé Convention, and to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), in addition to providing for any contingencies in the matter of exchange rate fluctuations which might arise in the course of the year.

In the event, Ireland's contribution to the Fourth EDF in 1980, as revised by the European Commission in the course of the year, amounted to £2,172,337 which is £427,663 less than anticipated. The Second Convention of Lomé has not yet entered into force and consequently there will be no call-up of the Fifth EDF funds in 1980. The allocation of £643,000 for the Fifth EDF will, therefore, not be called upon. Negotiations on the replenishment of IFAD — the International Fund for Agricultural Development — established in 1977, have been taking place during the year, but progress has been slower than expected. At this stage, it seems likely that the remaining issues will in fact be settled before the end of the year, but payments to IFAD II will not become due until 1981. There is, therefore, an additional saving of £190,000 this year on subhead G, which, together with savings on the contingency provision, amount in all to an estimated unexpended balance of £1,511,000.

I propose that £100,000 of this amount be transferred to subhead D, disaster relief, in order that I may be able to respond to appeals for emergency assistance between now and the end of the year. I propose that a further £100,000 be transferred to subhead C for the Agency for Personal Service Overseas (APSO). APSO enables individuals who have skills and experience to offer to travel to countries of the Third World and to participate in the development of these countries. The additional amount now being made available to the agency will enable them to meet all their commitments in relation to personnel overseas and to discharge their responsibilities. I also propose that £159,000 be transferred to subhead B, contributions to UN voluntary agencies, to constitute an additional contribution to the UN Development Programme (UNDP), which is the main UN Agency for Technical Co-operation, and as such, has a very high standing in both developed and developing countries.

Finally I propose that the balance, amounting to £1,202,000, be transferred to subhead E. This subhead covers payments to the grant-in-aid fund for bilateral and other aid contributions to developing countries, for which a sum of £2,275,000 has been provided in the original estimate. The additional amount will be used to meet our existing commitments to the bilateral aid programme this year.

In our bilateral aid programme we have sought to put into practice the principles and policies which guide our approach to development co-operation and, in addition, to complement our contribution to development through the various multilateral agencies. The programme which was initiated in 1973 is still at a very early stage in its development. Nevertheless, in a few short years we have laid the foundation for a comprehensive programme of co-operation. In formulating our bilateral aid programme we have been guided by the experience of other countries which have been active in this field longer than ourselves. We have also sought to use the resources and expertise which we acquired in the course of our own development together with the tremendous enthusiasm and generosity which has always characterised the approach of Irish people to the Third World.

We recognise that real and sustained development requires the building up of Third World countries from within. In the long-term it is the people of the Third, World themselves who must assure their own development. What we can do is to provide the technical assistance these countries require. For this reason we have given an absolute priority in our bilateral aid programme to the provision of technical assistance. We are conscious also of the overriding need to assist the least developed countries. We realise too clearly that in terms of the vast needs that exist in the Third World the quantity of assistance which we can provide could never amount to more than a drop in the ocean. We hope, however, that if we can in some way help to encourage and motivate these people to help themselves then our efforts will be worthwhile.

I have mentioned earlier in the year the establishment of the Advisory Council on Development Co-operation. The council has already begun to pursue its task actively and I am confident that its advice to the Government will be of valuable help in the future.

: Initially I was delighted to learn of the proposal to introduce a Supplementary Estimate for Foreign Affairs and, in particular, of International Co-operation. I felt that when the Government and the Minister had decided to introduce such Supplementary Estimates they were responding to the urgings of Fine Gael, Labour, the voluntary bodies involved in international assistance, Bishop Casey, indeed many other good people who have been devoting their time, effort and personal moneys towards promoting international aid to the Third World. In fact I thought the Government had undergone a change of heart, having reneged on their earlier commitments to the Third World. I looked forward with great anticipation to the figures we would be asked to approve in this House particularly in the area of international co-operation. I am afraid my hopes and expectations have been dashed in that we are merely dealing with a Supplementary Estimate in the token or paltry sum of £10. From that point of view it is clear that the Government have not had a change of heart, have not decided to revert to their original commitment to the Third World and have not decided to implement the targets announced by them before and after they came into power in 1977.

At the same time I accept that there is some benefit in having this Supplementary Estimate before the House. I must give the Minister credit for that because, without its introduction as it now stands, there would have been a leakage of approximately £1,500,000 in our development aid. Quite frankly it is of some benefit, because to ensure that the figure originally estimated is not reduced further by this sum of £1,500,000, the Minister has taken steps to provide that the amounts unspent in multilateral aid are being transferred to bilateral aid. From that point of view there is some benefit in this Supplementary Estimate.

At the same time I must strongly place on record my disappointment that the Minister has merely stopped short at preventing that leakage. While we are dealing with this Supplementary Estimate in the area of international co-operation, and bearing in mind discussions both inside and outside this House over the past 12 months, it seems fairly clear that a totally new approach is needed. In this regard I am somewhat concerned by the approach of the Minister in his speech in which he made no reference at all to the overall target at which the Government should be aiming nor did he make any reference at all to the steps by which such target should be achieved. He virtually writes off the question of any such target by referring to the amount of aid which would come from Ireland as being merely a drop in the ocean. I do not subscribe to that view at all. Even though the problem is enormous I believe it is only by each country playing its part, doing its bit, by a combination of all the developed countries doing so, that the problem can be in any way tackled. Therefore, taking the approach here that no matter what we give it will be merely a drop in the ocean is, I must suggest, totally wrong. Mind you it is fairly consistent with the Minister's attitude as expressed in the debate on the main Estimate when he consistently referred to his approach as being one of cutting our cloth to measure.

It is necessary in this House and indeed outside it to remind ourselves constantly of the scope of the problem and to reaffirm our commitment to making a contribution towards its solution. Sometimes when reading statistics it is very easy to forget that we are talking about human beings, about 800 million people in the Third World trapped in absolute poverty. There is the danger that we would be inclined to forget that we are talking about 800 million human beings. The same applies in regard to the number of such people who die each year, 50 million, from hunger and malnutrition. On the other hand the absolute enormity of the moneys involved in other areas of international expenditure so go beyond our conception of finance that we lose sight of the crazy situation obtaining in this world from the point of view of such expenditures. We are talking about an expenditure of 500 billion dollars a year in the current year on armaments as opposed to a total figure throughout the world of approximately 20 billion dollars in public development aid. To put this into perspective, we, as citizens of this world, are spending 25 times more in funds to kill people than to aid people.

It is absolutely important that we at all times bear that situation in mind, that we recall and keep publicising these figures so that the international conscience is constantly pricked by this crazy, awful situation. As the Minister pointed put, the Irish development programme was initiated by the Coalition Government when they came into power in 1973. Unfortunately, despite our acceptance of the United Nations target of 7 per cent of GNP in 1970, no programme at all existed prior to that. However, that is history and, let me be fair, while there were considerable advances between 1973 and 1980, certainly — even on our side of the House — the effort was not as good as it should be. The brave targets initially announced were not always achieved. At the same time, it was important that an attempt was made to continue having targets.

My present real worry is that there seems to be a total abandonment of targets and an acceptance that we merely make funds available as our resources permit. This is probably the worst aspect of the present Government's approach to the problem in the current year. I again take the opportunity to urge on the Minister the absolute necessity to revise his thinking in this regard. We must get the whole programme of development aid back on track again and establish a long-term target, not, as the Minister announced at the United Nations, have a woolly, some time in the future hope to achieve the UN target but an actual commitment to the date by which it will be achieved and the stages through which it will be achieved. It behoves all of us at this stage to stand back from the problem and see where we go from here.

All the evidence is that, internationally, the problems of the Third World are increasing annually and the argument for increased aid and a planned approach to the whole problem was given an added impetus by the publication of the Brandt Commission Report. Lip service was paid to this report, not just by the Minister for Foreign Affairs but by many other Government figures in the development world. Everyone rhetorically shed a tear, committed themselves to the achieving of the aims set out in that report and then not all, but many, countries did not go any further than that. The approach of the present Government was highlighted by the Minister's speech at the United Nations when he reaffirmed Ireland's commitment to progressing towards the .7 per cent target for ODA. He did not, however, mention that we were further away from the target this year than last year. How that could be regarded as progressing towards a target is beyond comprehension.

: Having regard to the Minister's particular skills, it is perfectly within his comprehension.

: Perhaps that is understandable, too. We are dealing with such an absolutely serious subject that this glib approach cannot be countenanced or accepted as being properly representative of the views of the Irish people. Furthermore, when this matter was raised in the Dáil on a number of occasions, the Minister did not accept the reality of the situation and has attempted to confuse figures by giving percentages which are not at all related to the matter under discussion—as, indeed, he did last week in response to some questions put by Deputy Quinn and myself.

At this stage, we in the Opposition, having properly castigated the Government for their approach, must now urge them to adopt a completely new one, if necessary on an all-party basis. It would be most unfortunate if the question of international aid became a political football. Having strongly castigated the Minister and his Government in the debate on the original Estimate, we must urge him to have a change of thinking. We are approaching the situation where the 1981 Estimate will be drafted and I hope, expect, indeed demand, that he have a totally different approach on presenting the 1981 Estimate in this area. I invite him to examine the policy enunciated by me on behalf of my party in this regard. It not merely says that we have a commitment to the .7 per cent target, but is a staged, planned approach which we are capable of meeting over a term of years. This is the only type of approach in dealing with the problem and I ask the Minister to consider adopting that policy when presenting his 1981 Estimate.

Other aspects which should be mentioned include the possibility of having an all-party committee to draw up a comprehensive policy programme in this area, with short-term and long-term objectives. Very complex questions arise in the matter of international co-operation. The situation has developed a lot from the time when we thought that aid to the Third World meant putting a penny in the collection box. We must ensure that the maximum benefit is derived by the recipient country and its people from the aid given. We must make sure that our own people, who have been so generous on a voluntary basis, have a full understanding of the work which is going on and, more importantly, it is absolutely essential that our own people have an understanding of the benefit which we derive from giving aid to the Third World. This aspect was highlighted in a speech by Robert McNamara, President of the World Bank, when he referred to the moral aspects of giving aid and went on to state the absolute necessity, from the point of view of developed countries, making sure in their own interests that the underdeveloped world was properly developed.

The other aspect which the Minister should consider is the question of the development aid agency and whether it is in the best interests of all that our aid under the heading of international co-operation should be disbursed directly by the Department of Foreign Affairs or whether there should be a development aid agency for so doing.

I hope we will be able to have a broader discussion on this later but in regard to this Estimate I accept that it is of some benefit in the context that the leakage of £1½ million that might have occurred will not now occur and that the funds which would not have been spent in the current year can be transferred to bilateral projects at this stage. At the same time it is vital that we realise that we are doing nothing more than keeping within the figure which was originally estimated. The announced committed target was £21 million rather than £16 million. There is no effort even in this Supplementary Estimate to bridge that shortfall of £16 million. The Minister announced an additional sum of £100,000 for the disaster relief fund, but it is essential that we bear in mind that the original Estimate was only £200,000 and that the 1979 figure was £500,000. Even with the extra £100,000 the disaster relief fund is still £200,000 below the 1979 estimate. In that context we must realise that we are not even making up the ground lost in the original Estimate. The same arises in regard to the contribution to the UN voluntary agencies where even with the additional figure it is still less than the 1979 estimate of £1,100,000. While there is an advantage in ensuring that funds that might be lost are not spent under other subheads this Estimate does nothing to restore the credibility of this nation in the field of official development assistance.

In regard to the Foreign Affairs Estimate some additions are involved. While I accept that it might be difficult at the start of a year to be reasonably exact in the amount required under various headings, I do not understand how the first figure, for instance, can be out by 37 per cent. The additional sum of £600,000 required is 37 per cent greater than the original estimate of £1,600,000. Why was this amount not anticipated when the figures were being drawn up? It is appropriate that we should be represented at the various international fora. From my experience of meeting officials of the Department at various gatherings I fully realise the benefit to this country of their doing their job at such meetings wherever they happen to take place but I wonder how a figure would have to be increased by 37 per cent and why a more realistic figure had not been included in the original Estimate. In other respects I accept that increases may be necessary in regard to repatriation and so on and indeed that the Department gives an excellent service.

The savings aspect should be looked at and perhaps the Minister would give us more detail as to how they were affected. As far as I can see from the Estimate the savings arose either because a substantial extra number of people applied for passports or because of the substantial increase in the fee for passports. I am anxious to know the percentage increases involved.

I do not oppose this Supplementary Estimate but I am disappointed that it is limited particularly in relation to international co-operation, that it does not provide for any increase and that it is merely a technical measure to ensure that our funds are not lost by way of a leakage and remain unspent. Will the Minister seriously think about what we on this side of the House and many people outside the House have been saying on this issue and will he ensure by using the weight which is attributed to him in the Cabinet that in 1981 an appropriate effort will be made to ensure that an adequate sum is proposed for international co-operation and more importantly that there is a new plan or if the Minister thinks it feasible, an all-party approach to ensure that we fulfil our commitments in this regard.

: In moving this Supplementary Estimate the Minister concentrated on three fundamental specific areas, international affairs as they have affected the internal policies of his Department in relation to increased costs and so on, the question of cultural affairs and of international co-operation. In the flush of excitement of the new job in Iveagh House coming as it did when the estimates were up for grabs at least this time last year, it is now fair to say in considered terms that in relation to our bilateral and multilateral aid programme this Minister, amiable as he undoubtedly is, has made a complete managerial mess of our bilateral aid programme. I formally put this charge on the record of the House. Neither the Minister in Cabinet nor his officials in Iveagh House seriously fought or resisted the first raid on the Department of Foreign Affairs requirements specifically for the bilateral aid programme, by the mandarins in the Department of Finance. In moving from the Department of Fisheries and Forestry to the Department of Foreign Affairs the Minister was totally at sea in relation to this matter and the savage cut proposed in relation to our bilateral aid programme at that time by the Department of Finance and its officials was not in any way effectively resisted by their counterparts in Iveagh House or by the Minister at the Cabinet table. There was a get-out when the resistance and objections were voiced strongly from Bishop Casey all the way down to such minor political personages as myself. The Minister realised that a mistake had been made — let us be honest about it, a major mistake was made and the Minister will have an opportunity when replying of denying whether he did put up a defence for the bilateral programme — on 20 June following the appearance of advertisements in newspapers by Trócaire and a number of deputations to the Minister.

It was when all the resistance had been voiced, when a number of specific bilateral aid programmes were in jeopardy, suspended or put into some kind of cold storage limbo and when some other projects did not get off the ground — specifically some of the Tanzanian ones — that the Minister, in the course of his Estimate speech, said that due to the overall budgetary situation — a classical Lenihan phrase — the amount allocated to the bilateral aid programme had not followed the pattern of substantial increases of recent years. That was a Lenihanese admission that his Department got screwed by the Department of Finance and were cut back. The Minister recognised that there was criticism at that stage and said he was conscious of the fact that this had led to a certain amount of criticism — another understatement — but he said that it was his intention to make use of possible unexpended sums expected to be available later in the year under one of the multilateral aid subheads to increase the amount of bilateral aid funds. The Minister said he intended to ensure that all our commitments to ongoing projects in the bilateral aid programme would be maintained. That last sentence would be more reassuring than it is if the words "ongoing projects" were omitted, another classical Lenihanese phrase. Is the word "ongoing" something that we promise, are committed to or something we cannot get our of? Dial one's favourite definition and it will fit into that lovely word "ongoing".

Deputy O'Keeffe and myself suggested to the Minister that there was room on the multilateral aid side rather than endangering any projects for which we had given specific commitments or for which we were likely to have to make commitments whether in Tanzania or Lesotho — we indicated previously that we would in 1980 or 1981 take up or initiate certain projects in that country. The Minister responded to that and he has now transferred the shortfall intake up on the multilateral side to the bilateral aid side. I welcome the fact that the Minister has maintained the tradition of his predecessor by transferring at the end of a financial year moneys from the multilateral side to the bilateral side. About two years ago in this House I pointed out to the then Minister for Foreign Affairs that he should seriously look at the efficiency of delivery of the multilateral aid programme, whether it is UN or EEC based. It is chronically inefficient in delivering money allocated in one year. Officials of the Department can clearly indicate that from the outset of our accession to the EEC when the Third EDF was in operation there was a shortfall in the take-up of moneys allocated to that fund as there is in the Fourth and Fifth EDF and what is required of us by the Commission and Council of Ministers.

Our credibility in terms of delivering a bilateral aid programme was damaged by the way in which the Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Minister's management of it, handled the necessity to cut back on Government expenditure when the Taoiseach found that the cupboard was bare in terms of money. Without getting personal or over-dramatic about this it is true to say that everybody in the NGOs here involved in the bilateral aid programme in one way or another is of one view on this matter. It is their view that serious damage was done to our credibility in terms of our commitment to try to even out the inevitable swings and roundabouts and ups and downs of financing aid programmes. In so far as we are now trying to repair the damage at this stage recent moves are welcome but since last February, when Finance and Foreign Affairs were signalling to people in the field and to agencies, a period of six months was lost in which nothing was done or said other than the vague promise that money would be transferred. The Minister, earlier in the year, transferred some money to APSO and that was welcome. For whatever reason, coupled with the movement from one Department to another, coupled with, perhaps, a lack of commitment among some senior officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs to the bilateral aid programme and with an inordinate sense of inferiority complex of some senior civil servants and Ministers who feel that we cannot renege on our international obligations to international financing agencies such as the World Bank or the EEC, there were cutbacks. I recognise Government Departments can be forced to cut back and that the soft option is to cut our bilateral aid programme and not touch the multilateral programme. The multilateral programme has demonstrated from our experience that the take-up on funds allocated to it is always less than the amount of money originally required.

Last spring I suggested that we reverse the process and make the bilateral aid programme the one on which we stand firm and the multilateral aid programme the one on which we hold a certain degree of flexibility. I suggested that if necessary we should respond with a Supplementary Estimate, as the Minister is doing, in the autumn of any year if there was a 100 per cent take-up of the funds required. There are risks attached to that strategy but they are less damaging than the damage that has been done to the bilateral aid programme. I seriously suggest to the Minister that he consider that criticism in the spirit in which it has been offered. It does not give me any joy to be arguing with the Minister for Foreign Affairs about the fact that he has damaged our bilateral aid programme and, in the process, damaged the reputation of our country. Irrespective of which party are in office and of which individual holds the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, damage done internationally to the bilateral aid programme is damage which affects us all.

We have seen it before—the previous administration ran into budgetary difficulties also in regard to getting funds for overseas development and there were sharp falls in the promised percentage of money actually made available in 1975 and 1976. We know this as does everybody working in the NGO programme. It seems that while in theory all these estimates are open for debate and discussion, for increase or decrease, in reality some of them are absolutely sacrosanct and untouchable, for example things over which the Department have no control, external communication costs, but equally such things as salaries. Nobody suggests we should debate anything about increased salaries in any of these civil service Estimates. They do not even come up for discussion. The only flexibility or variability is in the expenditure items after you have taken away costs including salaries.

I am not suggesting that we should go into salaries because that is part and parcel of the whole national understanding but I say to the Minister that it is time that the three parties in the Dáil took the question of the bilateral aid programme and the multilateral aid programme and its percentage of GNP out of the realm of party politics and on to the level of something for which there is consensus. We shall have plenty of scope to argue about the allocation of priorities and where it should be spent, whether it should go more into the bilateral side or the multilateral side, whether one priority country is in receipt of too much funds in comparison with another. I do not suggest suspending debate or discussion on our international development co-operation programme but I say it is time to get away from arguing this numbers game because in the end nobody can win. Whoever sits in the Minister's seat will suffer the same kind of pressure that he has suffered and which the figures show he has suffered. I think the Minister did the right thing in October in transferring it back. So did his predecessor and unless we break this mould together on behalf of the foreign affairs spokespeople in the House it will always be up for renegotiation, for carving and cutting by the Department of Finance. That is the reality of Government practice. The Minister has infinitely more experience of this than I have.

I should like formally to propose that we reach agreement on a timetable of whatever duration to hit the UN target on 0.7 per cent of GNP over a period of time for the overall international development co-operation programme — an agreement on the timetable for achieving that figure consolidated as such. That I suggest would immeasurably strengthen the hands of any Minister for Foreign Affairs in dealing with the Department of Finance just as certain estimate items now are not even up for discussion in real terms although they are presented here.

The Minister is aware that certain steps are being taken to initiate an all-party committee of both Houses on the question of international co-operation and specifically in relation to the Brandt report and the whole question of the North-South dialogue. There is every reason to believe that this committee will get off to a good start. There is positive encouragement for it. There is much to be done and much has been done regarding its establishment. Without wishing to prejudice the outcome I think the signs now indicate that the prospects for the successful establishment of such a committee are reasonably good. In the real politics of both Houses we know the prospects for the success of an all-party committee are extremely limited if such a committee can be used as a lever against the Government of the day. Despite the preferences of individual members of the committee if they are Government supporters and that committee appears to be attacking the Government in a fundamental way — there is nothing more fundamental than cash when it comes to an election or an economic crisis — the prospects for success and co-operation will be limited. The committee should try in consultation with the Minister and with the relevant officials and organisations who participate in NGO fashion in the multilateral programme to arrive at a realistic figure and timetable for achieving this 0.7 of GNP. If that were done this kind of debate which inevitably will be run and re-run every year could be put aside in the same way that we are not talking about salaries, rental costs or postal charges. Nobody suggests, for example, that we should sell our Paris Embassy, which has obviously now appreciated to an enormous extent in value having regard to property values in central Paris, and move to a single floor in a modern office block. This kind of thing does not come up for discussion and in that sense is taken out of the Estimates.

Having criticised what I consider as a piece of bad management I recognise that the Minister has responded and has attempted to correct it and is effectively transferring more than half what was originally forecast at the beginning of this year to the bilateral aid programme. For 1980 the original sum was £2.275 million as compared with £2.813 million in 1979. But it is now proposed — and I welcome it — to transfer on top of the £2.275 million an additional sum of £1.202 million bringing it to a total of £3.4 million approximately. I would hope that we could avoid these ups and downs that we have had in the past and which I would say irrespective of who will be in the Minister's seat are likely to continue in the future unless we clear the ground in regard to the overall matter. That effort will be more formally made when the Joint Committee — hopefully — is set up but I sincerely ask the Minister to give it close examination himself and have it carefully considered in his Department.

It does not pre-empt debate on the whole question of our international co-operation programme or on the split between multilateral and bilateral. It does not pre-empt debate on what countries should have priority — all these issues remain open, as they should — but it does remove from the arena the critical, fundamental question of the amount of funds. Let me suggest to a Minister whose political skill is well known that it provides a not inconsiderable degree of insurance to any incumbent in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs against the kind of criticism to which the Minister referred in his speech of May 20 this year.

There are two final points on the natter of international co-operation. The first is in relation to the State or Republic of Zimbabwe. It is only right and proper for me on an Estimate for International Co-operation on behalf of the Labour Party formally to record my disappointment about the way in which the Government and specifically the Minister for Agriculture, I think — correct me if I am wrong — played the card of the Zimbabwe cattle and the prospect of their being imported into the EEC in order to extract a concession on another front within the process of negotiation that goes on in the Commission and in the Council itself.

Irrespective of how it was interpreted on the top two floors of those buildings, it was misinterpreted by a number of people in Zimbabwe as being the exact reverse on real terms of the offers of help that had been made by the West in general, and by this country in particular, last year when the Lancaster House talks were going on. If the unaligned countries of the world, particularly those which had to struggle for their independence, want to test seriously the cynicism of the western power bloc, with which this country, regrettably, seems to have aligned itself in this matter, they could not find anything more nakedly cynical than the profusive offers of help made initially in 1975 by Henry Kissinger on behalf of the United States and throughout the Lancaster House negotiations to both Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, and if they would only stop fighting the offers of help got bigger and bigger still, if on top of committing themselves to do that they would promise never again to have anything to do with the Soviet Eastern bloc.

The reality is that in that country, which had seven years of civil war, with horrendous effects on large tracts of its hinterland, once the Patriotic Front leaders met their side of the deal offered in Lancaster House, the West became unbelievably miserable in their response to the enormous problems now affecting Zimbabwe. We, to our shame — the Minister for Foreign Affairs and this Government are part of that shame — have not been as generous as we could have been. Specifically, other cards should have been played at that Council of Ministers' meeting other than those regarding the Zimbabwe cattle. Everybody in that room in Brussels knew that there was not a hope in hell of Zimbabwe cattle being accepted in Europe for at least three years, until such time as their health standards had been brought up to the level——

: It has been all settled now.

: I know it has been settled, but the damage has not been repaired. Perhaps when I have had the Minister's experience I may be as sanguine about it as he, but to many people working in Zimbabwe, many Irish people working in the missions there, the response of the Irish Government in that instance was seen to be miserable and in line with the miserable response of the British. American and German Governments. In reparation for that I suggest that the Minister change his attitude. We must remember that Zimbabwe is a potentially wealthy country with enormous resources, but she has suffered from a disastrous civil war and on top of that, because of the colonialist and racist nature of the regime much of the African population are without skilled resources in terms of personnel. Combined with the consequences of civil war, there is a great absence of medical personnel in particular in many parts of the tribal trustlands.

Therefore, I earnestly suggest to the Minister that in conjunction with Project Africa he would attempt to enlarge the existing programme of putting personnel in the field in these countries, on consultation with the relevant authorities in Zimbabwe, and that our Ambassador in Kenya would be instructed and required, if this has not already been done, formally to visit Salisbury to explain clearly to a new nation, some of whose personnel might not be aware of the procedures of international bargaining, that in opposing the Zimbabwe cattle deal Ireland was not indicating its future attitude to that country. A detailed list could be drawn up of the personnel needs, short-term, of the Zimbabwe authorities so that we could try to help to alleviate the effects of the civil war there.

If Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo had decided that they would be leaning much more towards the East and had sought technical assistance from the Soviet Union, East Germany or from China, the West would be queuing up at this stage to buy their favours. The fact that Zimbabwe and its leaders have remained totally unaligned is now being cynically interpreted by many sections as evidence of the basic bad faith of the western power bloc. We are not formally a part of that bloc, though frequently our voting in the UN might indicate that we are, and this is an opportunity for the Minister to give the lie to that impression. He will have the support of the Irish Labour Party in that matter.

I will turn now to the question of cultural relations. About this time last year, I spoke on a Supplementary Estimate to make funds available for the burgeoning and growing festival entitled "A Sense of Ireland" which was beginning to catch the imagination of the people of London and of this country. Everybody associated with that venture realises that it was a success. The idea originated in the IDA. There were early problems. There were criticisms of it, and some things would have been done differently if they were to be done again. That has been conceded by the organiser and by all the participants, but there is unanimity that it was a success, a good idea. We should look at that success and see how we can repeat it in such a way that we can learn to overcome problems associated with its organisation and administration.

I assume that the bulk of the £175,000 in Subhead E is required for "A Sense of Ireland". Many people can read figures better than I, so I will just evaluate the success of that undertaking. There is a connection between our influence in the world, within the EEC, what is now described by Bord Failte as "cultural tourism", the promotion and development of our own arts, and the possibility of earning revenue from them. It was not simply because Harold Wilson liked the sound of the Liverpool music of the Beatles that they were given MBEs. The Beatles were massive net contributors to Britain's revenue and in that sense there is a potential economic dimension to a vibrant cultural sector in our economy. Festivals such as "A Sense of Ireland" are an aspect of that.

The organisers of "A Sense of Ireland" have shown that it could be successfully mounted in London, although there were problems. Now is the time to look at the lessons of that success and to try to increase the cultural fund generally for this kind of activity in line with our farming and tourist policies. Perhaps we should draw up a ten year programme and select a series of venues chosen because of their combined potential, whether political, tourist or economic. The United States is one obvious area, although it has probably been overexposed. France and Germany are two other venues for a repetition of the idea of "A Sense of Ireland." Perhaps the festival could be redesigned to facilitate holding it in a non-English speaking country. If there are proposals to relocate "A Sense of Ireland" in another city within the EEC, would the Minister state what the split would be in terms of funds through the Estimate for the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Arts Council and funds that may be available from the recipient country, since we would have cultural agreements with some of these countries?

Obviously we cannot have the kind of ad hoc growth that produced “A Sense of Ireland”. In some ways that is regrettable because that growth contributed to the success of the festival. The amount of money involved, relative to other things, is substantial. I am not in a position to evaluate the benefit in accountancy terms, but I assume it has been properly accounted. I am not disputing the extra money, as we now know the cost of a festival of this kind. We can see some of the benefits, and it was particularly useful when it was held in Britain in terms of relationships between Britain and Ireland. It could usefully be repeated in France, Germany and other EEC countries. We should see whether we could run it two or three times in different cities. I would not attribute the same priority to the US because there is enough Irish input there.

As regards international affairs, the Minister in his opening speech spoke about increased costs brought about by international affairs generally. I am concerned that some of the savings on the original Estimate are attributed to staff vacancies. I wonder if we are leaving ourselves unnecessarily short staffed. Is this part of the invisible Government cutbacks which we all know exist throughout the rest of Government Departments? Is the Minister, with his usual skill, making a virtue out of necessity in this matter? Are these vacancies imposed on the Department by the Department of the Public Service? If that is so, let it be said. The Minister should not protect the Minister for the Public Service in this regard. If damage is done to the foreign affairs role of this country, it is done to us all collectively and is more difficult to repair than if it were done domestically. If that is the case it should be stated and we will go after the Minister for the Public Service. When we are talking about our reputation and international performance let us try to raise it out of the trough of domestic fighting about money. If we have left some embassies with one or two people when they should have three or four, let us say so. The Minister may not have that kind of information to hand, but a parliamentary question could elicit it. We can get a profile on the situation. It is in nobody's interest that that should be the case.

Our election to the United Nations Security Council, which we all welcome, will mean that, willy-nilly, we will have increased representations from other member states of the United Nations to pursue a particular line or to defend a particular position. We need to have a clearer attitude about certain international policy issues. I am disappointed with the lack of independence voiced by this Government in relation to foreign affairs generally. I have a feeling, rightly or wrongly, that we are unnecessarily hiding under the umbrella of European political co-operation. We do not have to do that. The Germans, French and British make no bones about getting out from under that flag of convenience when it does not suit them.

It is a tradition that affects this administration, as it did the previous one, that we are super-communitaire when it comes to matters relating to the Community. I am not happy that we would be adopting a sufficiently independent line at Madrid particularly in relation to the question of human rights in the Soviet Union and other countries. A question I put to the Minister at Question Time last week in relation to Peter Ewell, a victim because of membership of the VONS Group and Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, was avoided in the reply from the Minister's Department as being part of the overall process. My reading of that was that we were not going to adopt any kind of strong line within EPC let alone any kind of independent attitude on certain specific items.

We are all subject to very inadequate information relating to these matters, and Opposition Deputies more so than Government Departments. It seems to be an indication of the non-vigorous attitude adopted by the political section within the Department and endorsed by the Minister. The Minister is totally politically responsible for the line taken by any official. It was an indication that we would be soft in EPC on the question of monitoring Helsinki. I say that in the full realisation that Madrid barely got off the ground. The eastern bloc countries arrived with the smell of Afghanistan around them and proposed a very tight non-discussive programme. I am aware of some of the difficulties particularly when one has strident right wing members, from the British Government across to some of the Belgians and Germans.

The fact that we now have a seat on the UN Security Council requires us to have a stronger input than has currently been the case. I am not a diplomat and do not profess to be. There are specific skills attached to diplomacy. Ireland's independent neutral position in terms of foreign policy around the world, which will have a higher profile because of our membership of the UN Security Council, is being endangered by our collective and non-individualistic attitude to EPC and the fact that we seem never to have an independent foreign policy line of our own unless and until such time as it is endorsed by the Community. There may be very good arguments from the Minister's point of view as to why that should be the case. Benefits may be accruing to the Irish foreign service and to Ireland's overall foreign policy objectives which are not apparent to me, and if that is the case I would be glad to be informed as to what they may be.

This country consciously over two years sought a seat on the Security Council. It seems pointless if we take that seat and then adopt a strict EPC line on that seat. We might as well send an official from the Foreign Affairs section of the Commission in Brussels. He would do the job just as well and would cost us less money. Therefore, what are we going to do with it and what line are we going to take as the Republic of Ireland in relation to certain breaches of the Helsinki Agreement?

I hope that as a final measure in relation to Madrid and Helsinki generally we could at least identify three or four individuals who perhaps are suffering from a denial of human rights as a consequence of the failure of the Soviet Union to honour its agreements on Helsinki. Let us be clear that it was the Russians who campaigned for about 15 years to get Helsinki together. They went around every country in Europe looking for the Helsinki Agreement and they undertook voluntarily their commission in Helsinki. If we have to tie into an EPC line, which is the lowest common denominator, at least let us reserve something for ourselves in terms of foreign policy so that the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs can say that we are on top of a difficult position which we adopted in EPC which ultimately we followed because it was the better foreign policy objective and that we as an independent State made direct representations to this Government or that and achieved this or that result. Those representations, particularly with eastern bloc countries, must be discreet and must be done without any fanfare of publicity. I recognise the sensitivity of the Russian bear in these matters. It is a card which must be recognised as being there and it should be played by professional diplomats. That is the major point I want to make on international affairs at the moment. I do not want, and it would not be appropriate, to open up a general debate.

: No. We are moving just a little into the main Estimate. I am giving a bit of latitude in view of the circumstances but to safeguard this area in future we can debate only what is in the Supplementary Estimate.

: In recognition of that, I propose to conclude on that by saying that that is the major item coming up in relation to Madrid. Finally, I want to reiterate the formal offer which the Labour Party are making in relation to taking the amount of money for international co-operation out of the realm of party debate and agreeing a figure and a timetable to reach that figure in order to see if we can come to an arrangement so that we will not be buffeted by the sort of things by which the Minister has been buffeted in the past as a result of which he is trying now to repair some of the damage.

On the question of cultural affairs, let us look at the lessons to be learned from the success of "A Sense of Ireland". How can we repeat it? What are the thoughts of the Minister in conjunction with the Department of the Taoiseach, who take in the Arts Council, and also of the Arts Council themselves? What countries could maximise the reception of this type of festival, having regard to their own cultural budgets, their own funding and the cultural relations which we are having now increasingly with a number of them?

With regard to the whole question of making a reality out of our independent foreign policy, at the same time pushing and shoving within EPC to advance our line is hardly enough. I say that in full recognition of the fact that the relative leverage of a State such as Ireland is limited. I do not want to seem to fall into the trap, with respect to Deputy O'Keeffe's constituency, of imitating the editor of the Skibbereen newspaper solemnly warning the Tsar, nor do I want to repeat the performance of Deputy Kelly solemnly warning the world about the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

: I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Supplementary Estimate for Foreign Affairs. On Vote 47 under subhead B there is an increase. The additional sum being voted now by this House is £600,000 to meet travelling and incidental expenses. Deputy O'Keeffe worried about this amount and queried the amount of travelling that must be involved. I would like to deal with the other aspect which is the amount for communications, especially telecommunications, involved in this. Having had a certain amount of contact with the Department of Foreign Affairs in recent weeks on the matter of repatriation, I know that the contacts they went through were numerous and that more and more of our people tend to travel and, naturally, the amounts which must be sought in this House for communications will continue to increase.

I would like to put on the record of the House my gratitude to the Minister, his office and the Department of Foreign Affairs for their help in the case which they know about only too well.

I move on now to subhead E and the matter of cultural relations with other countries, grants-in-aid. The Minister rightly has spoken here about the festival of the arts of Ireland in London, "A Sense of Ireland". This cultural promotion has achieved an enormous amount of goodwill. It is a timely promotion which has had a grassroots effect in London. It has projected a positive image of Ireland and our people and an expression of our culture and our civilisation and it would be impossible to estimate the benefits in kind. Over the years I would like to see increases in grants-in-aid under this subhead which will allow similar festivals to be launched in other countries. If it were possible that "A Sense of Ireland" could be modelled appropriately and trimmed if necessary to go on tour, I would welcome that and I look forward to the observations of the Minister on this in due course. I congratulate all who were involved in it. It was received enthusiastically by the community and this House owes a great deal of gratitude to those who put a lot of time and expertise into its promotion.

I turn now to the Supplementary Estimate for Vote 48, International Co-operation and I congratulate the Minister that under subhead E he has been able to find an increase on the original Estimate from £2.275 million to £3.347 million. It is a considerable and very welcome increase. Subhead D indicates an increase of £100,000 to be made available in the event of further disaster internationally. We all hope that this would require to be only a token within the overall Estimate but, unfortunately, disasters occur. We have had a spate of them and it is only fitting that we play whatever part we can as a people to bring aid to alleviate the suffering which must follow these major disasters. We would all wish to see a situation which would result in under-expenditure under subhead D but we have no control over acts of God, nature and so on. Therefore, I am pleased that the Minister has been able to come up with this £100,000 extra for emergencies between now and the end of the year. I should be glad if he would indicate precisely where this money will be spent. The increase to APSO is to be welcomed also as is the increase to UN voluntary agencies.

As the Minister has expanded on our bilateral aid programme, I would like to give some of my own views on bilateral aid. That there is a genuine concern amongst people to see that economic and social conditions of people of poorer countries improve is extremely clear. The reaction to various proposals was also clearly seen and the efforts of CONGOOD in lobbying very strongly for increases are also on the record.

If we look over the years before we moved into any official programme, we see how CONGOOD developed. Many of our missionaries went to help and to develop the poorer countries. They made a personal commitment but also kept a direct link with the people at home which brought about a direct Irish involvement in developing countries and stimulated public interest in world poverty and international issues. They showed everyone the problems that existed on the ground and brought home to us a deep awareness of the social conditions that existed in those countries. They inspired many people to try to influence, where possible, the situation and see that unacceptable political and economic conditions were changed.

Voluntary efforts in those days had a twofold approach, mainly raising and distributing funds to help Third World developing projects and they were very much involved in the area of education. This situation existed for a long time before the mid-seventies when the structure emerged which co-ordinated voluntary efforts. I can recall in the sixties, while I was with a missionary order in Nigeria, the arrival of the American Peace Corps, the voluntary service overseas group and the graduate voluntary services overseas group. I saw the wonderful work the missionaries and volunteers were doing in promoting aid and helping the people.

I was delighted to see in the seventies the establishment of CONGOOD because I felt a co-ordinated effort was required. Because CONGOOD is nongovernmental, it clearly can be, and is, less restrained than an official governmental approach to the situation. It continues the link with the people in Ireland from whom it draws support and is very much involved with the grassroots and smaller communities, the under-privileged in the Third World countries. It has a direct link with the poor and oppressed minorities which would be out of the question for governmental programmes.

I mentioned earlier the concern felt among Irish and other people in developed countries to see that social conditions are improved in Third World countries but we should also take cognisance of the fact that there is a deep concern among the people in Third World countries to see that their conditions are improved. If we look at the world we see the growing gap between rich and poor nations. This gap is mirrored by a similar divergence between the well off and the impoverished and between many of the less developed countries.

One of the tasks of development aid must be for new approaches and to get greater participation in development efforts by those who are supposed to benefit from them. Our people abroad are deeply and personally involved with local people who are meant to benefit from developmental aid. There have been many criticisms in the past of material aid due to arrive under certain circumstances but which arrived under different circumstances. Many of these difficulties have been overcome but we must continue to get greater participation in development efforts from those people who are genuinely supposed to benefit from them.

All donor agencies, development agencies, planning councils and so on make participation of the poor majority a central concern of their programmes. They try to involve everyone in their activities but they are not always successful in this area. Nevertheless, the involvement of the poor in making decisions on development efforts which affect them and the contribution of their resources to development activities, are essential to overall development. There must be an assurance that the poor will benefit from interventions intended to help them.

We must look at who should participate in these programmes. Clearly local leaders and residents, government and foreign personnel must participate not alone in decision-making but also in evaluating the programmes and benefits, and see how each affects the local community. We must ask these questions: have we, as a donor country, unconsciously promoted our values? Have we imposed our educational innovations? I say "unconsciously" because perhaps that has happened. Our aid must be to help people develop by their own actions and to let them move gradually towards a structuring of communities so that they will become more aware of their own values, resources and needs and more capable of solving their own problems.

There are natural leaders in various localities who exist independently of community development projects. Such people express the culture of their community and exert influence by way of inter-personal relationships. The importance of these people must be recognised in terms of development programmes and their support should be enlisted. In many of the earlier development-aid programmes and projects such people were overlooked but happily that is no longer the situation. These natural leaders are able to bridge the gap between administration and their local community.

In general, education should focus on methods by which a local community can participate in the process of change and development. Training must not be based on helping local people to adapt to existing society. Instead, these people need to be taught to understand critically their own society. Neither should training be limited to production techniques. It should expand to increase the ability of local people to participate in the process of their own change. Local communities must have a sense of importance and of control of their own destiny. There is no point in trying to impose a situation on them. Situations arise from spontaneous happenings and they are then continued by way of the resources of the people concerned. People must be able to comprehend clearly that the decision-making in which they are involved is democratic and independent. They must have direct access to the authorities who make the overall decisions.

In this House we have been concerned about reaching UN monetary targets. That is a very important matter but sometimes during our deliberations we overlook the vital point that governmental groups and voluntary agencies should know the precise time at which to remove themselves from the scene. There is no point in promoters trying to perpetuate themselves once a local community have been brought to a certain stage of maturity and have acquired a capacity for analysis. At that point donor countries and voluntary agencies should consider their mission complete.

Having had direct contact with missionaries and with agencies involved in the field work, I am aware that they understand that their presence in these countries is solely for the purpose of helping other people to grow and that that growth is the unfolding of their potential. I know, too, that various agencies have to justify budgets and that in doing so they may seek fast results. But fast results do not follow. Growth rates are slow in the situations we are talking of. Many of these peoples have not had the opportunity of self-expression and after a long period of silence, self-expression comes very slowly to them. I am glad that in our development programmes, both official and voluntary, we aim at authentic society building. I commend all those who are working in this field. They sacrifice much but they are encouraged in the knowledge of the extent to which they are helping others.

I am very pleased to note that there is now a 53 per cent increase under subhead E of Vote 48 compared with the original Estimate for this year. I congratulate the Minister in this regard. In passing, I congratulate him, too, on having achieved for Ireland a seat on the Security Council. The work that went on behind the scenes in order to achieve this situation is clear witness to the advance of the Department of Foreign Affairs. Much benefit will accrue to us from our presence on the Security Council.

I shall not detain the House further except to remark that much of what I have said is summed up in the Minister's speech where he said that we recognise that real and sustained development requires the building up of Third World countries from within and that in the long term the people of the Third World are the ones who must ensure their own development. I have endeavoured to outline our role within that framework.

: I shall be very brief in my contribution to this debate. The Department of Foreign Affairs is all about communications between the peoples of the world, and the world, in the terms of communication, is becoming a rather small place. It is a horrific situation that conditions should be so different in respect of what we might call the two parts of the world. However, I am very happy to note that there is an increase in the estimate for the people of the Third World. Our people generally would be disappointed in the Minister and in the Government if there were not such an increase.

: Hear, hear.

: Recently we saw on our television screens the awful pictures of men, women and children starving to death. When one considers the prosperity of this country and the amount of money that is spent on food, one realises how sad would be the situation of our failing to make a substantial contribution — even if it represents only a drop in the ocean — to those who are dying of starvation. At school when learning about the famine in Ireland in the 1840s we were told that the people were dropping dead along the roads and that there was plenty of food in countries very close to us. I could not understand why the people of Ireland were allowed to die during the famine years when there was so much which could have been given to them. That is the reason I say that now that we are in a position to help other countries where the same things are happening — in the last century people in other countries could not see what was happening here but we can see what is happening in other countries on our television screens — if we cannot respond to this we are monstrous.

What is basically needed is to help those people to provide for themselves. They must be fed initially, because nobody in the condition which the majority of the people in the Third World are could work even if there was work for them. When they have sufficient food, and when the money being sent to them enables them to be fed properly, it is time to try to build up internal organisations to educate them, to provide employment for them and to teach them how to grow their own food and establish industries.

I am also very glad to see that money is being given to help the wonderful people who go out to help the Third World countries. Most of those people spend two or three years there and receive no pay but only maintenance while they are in those countries. They give up their time to look after those people. It is very hard to realise that there are still countries where people have not sufficient food. We talk of human rights. Surely, next to the right to be allowed to live, we must place the basic human rights of having sufficient food to keep body and soul together, of sufficient living accommodation, and of education for people so that they can live a decent human life without being degraded.

In this Supplementary Estimate, as well as dealing with the Third World and the need for money and food to help those people who have practically nothing, we are also talking about quite a large sum of money for the "A Sense of Ireland" Festival, which took place in London earlier this year. We live in a civilised part of the world. We have plenty to eat and are reasonably comfortable. We then think of our cultural needs, which is a very good thing. This festival, following initial problems, was a success because it brought people from the British Isles and ourselves together. We brought across to London samples of our literature, arts, crafts, films and our theatre. Forty different venues were used for this festival. It showed the people of England a little bit about our culture. It brought home to them that we have our own culture. It is very important to us and we would like to display it.

I consider what Deputy Quinn suggested a very good idea. Now that this festival has been tried in the country nearest to us we should consider bringing it around Europe. We should also invite other countries to bring their festivals here. We have joined the EEC. The Continent of Europe is becoming very small and we can get to any part of it in a very short time. There should be more co-operation between Europe and Ireland in cultural matters. We should be able to have a good idea of the cultures of Germany, France and other countries. They should come to us and show us their cultures and we should go to them with ours. We have been producing some plays in some of those countries, but a festival like "A Sense of Ireland" was a major effort and we should think about extending it to other countries.

The work of the Department of Foreign Affairs and of the Minister for Foreign Affairs is extremely important. Our embassies in various countries are a link between the people in those countries and ourselves. It helps our relationships. It helps to bridge gaps which would be there if we did not have fully-fledged embassies. We have staff in those embassies to communicate with people in those countries and to communicate with our people who go abroad and perhaps get into difficulties in those countries. When such people go to our embassies they are helped by the staff there. Our embassies are becoming more important now that people are travelling so much.

I am sure all Deputies will support this Estimate. There is no sense in saying to the Minister that he should not be given this extra money. We all know that it is necessary. I hope that in the coming years the money allocated to the Third World will never again be cut back, that instead it will be increased as our salaries are increased. We are probably not nearly as much in need as the people in the Third World. I hope that in future Estimates for the Department of Foreign Affairs a generous allocation will be set aside to help the people who have nothing and who are our responsibility. We live in what is called the civilised part of the world. We have sufficient, we are well educated and are becoming increasingly affluent. We are spending vast sums of money on food and drink. At least a fair proportion of the money allocated in the budget to the Department of Foreign Affairs should be sent to the people in the Third World who have so little. I look forward to a budget in which a generous amount of money will be allocated to help these people who are our neighbours and fellow human beings. It is our responsibility to do what we can for them.

: I agree with the views that have been expressed by Deputy Lemass, Deputy Murphy, Deputy O'Keeffe and Deputy Quinn in regard to the importance of maintaining our level of aid under the overseas development assistance programme. I would like to emphasise one point which is relevant: this is a time of budgetary constraint, not just in Ireland, but in every country in the developed world and every single country is having difficulties at present in maintaining its level of aid under this heading. Within the European Community there are 8.1 million people unemployed. Side by side with that, a large percentage of the world, primarily the Third World, is living below subsistence level. The tragedy is that the Brandt Commission report, which is a brilliant document and should be compulsory reading for everyone, emerged at a time and promulgated recommendations which, because of the economic blizzard that has hit the developed world, cannot be implemented as immediately or as urgently as Brandt and his colleagues rightly advised. The conclusions reached in the Brandt Report are impeccable, that the developed world is spending too much on armaments, and that it is in the interests of the developed world from the point of view of its own economy that the growing third world population be sustained, if only for the reason of keeping the economic engine of the developed world going. It is important that proper consumer markets and growing prosperity should be engineered through the transfer of resources in the underdeveloped world. That logic is unanswerable on economic and financial grounds and in the self-interest of the developed world. Apart altogether from the considerations that were rightly mentioned by the four Deputies, the basic considerations of morality and enlightenment, basic human dignity and decency, it is compulsory for us in the more prosperous part of the world to ensure that our brothers and sisters in the poor parts of the world are sustained and lifted out of what is, in many cases, degradation.

One sees straight away a bald figure — there is nothing like a bald figure to emphasise a point — that 40 per cent of the Third World population is living below subsistence level, living in a constant state of hunger. That emphasises the enormity of the task and, although a small country cannot help much financially, what we can do best, as was said by Deputy Murphy and others, is to concentrate on technical assistance. We do not have enormous sums of money, we are not among the prosperous half of the developed world.

: I agree.

: It is for wealthier countries to provide cash and make grants available but we have a large reservoir of expertise. We have developed our nation over the past two generations, provided administrative ability and leadership and indicated to people how to go about things in a basic way, and applied the appropriate professional skills, whether in engineering, construction, agriculture, reclamation, reseeding and organisation of farming and co-operatives and teaching. We have built up a reputation and provided power stations and electricity distribution systems in which the ESB have played an excellent part in several Third World countries, providing expertise in the development of bogs in Ruanda and Burundi where they have peat land resources not unlike our own.

This country had to fight its way, metaphorically speaking, to become a nation, through the adaptation of its own imagination and brains, building up its own administration, applying its own professional and technical skills and educational abilities to our own problems and transplanting those problems to the emerging countries and saying "yes, within our own time we faced these problems, we can advise you how to make use of the funds that will come from wealthier donor countries". These are the areas in which we can help best and on which we should concentrate. I agree with Deputy Murphy this must be done in a spirit of participation with the local people. We cannot impose solutions to problems, even though the solutions may seem, in our more sophisticated view, to be obvious. They have to be patiently explained and local leadership fostered. Once it has grown sufficiently the adviser must go, hopefully having planted the seed of leadership so that it can take root in its own environment and reproduce its own leaders.

I would like to have more money available to implement what I am saying. It is in that spirit that I indicated to Deputy Quinn on 24 April that, during the year, I would transfer funds from the multilateral to the bilateral programme as happened in the past. I said that as early as last April so that the various agencies involved in bilateral programmes would know that moneys would be made available at a later stage and that they could proceed with their planning on the basis that there would be a transfer of the kind that is now proposed. The major part of the supplementary estimates is concerned with the transfer of £1.2 million from the unexpended areas to the bilateral area.

I note what Deputy Quinn states regarding doing it the other way round. I can see one obvious difficulty, our primary credibility rests on fulfilling commitments that we make and ensuring that these commitments are accepted by us. That is basic and fundamental to our international reputation and it is valuable credit and credibility as far as a State is concerned, that it honours its international commitments. It is not our fault that these commitments are not met when they should be met, that is a failing of international bureaucracy, be it the EEC, the United Nations or a multinational or international agency. All of them seem to encounter the problem of inability to meet commitments or to utilise funds available to them. At the same time, these large institutions look at what is on paper so far as an individual country is concerned. We have to produce on paper in our budget a figure matching the commitments we have made. Our credibility lies in the Book of Estimates in regard to an assessment of us by other countries and international agencies. From that point of view I would have a doubt in pursuing Deputy Quinn's idea, however logical it may seem.

Deputy O'Keeffe rightly emphasised the Brandt Commission Report. In his speech he concentrated on the inadequacy of the development programme and the funds available. I repeat that because of the enormity of the job involved there are not sufficient funds and there will never be sufficient funds. That is the reality of the situation. The job is so enormous it would require a massive disengagement by the world of armaments commitments to ensure the proper transfer of moneys required. It is in the armaments area — this was referred to by Deputy O'Keeffe — that there is the massive expenditure and if this were reduced and transferred to the Third World we could start making a dent in the problem and achieve some progress. Short of that, I am afraid the moneys are not available in the developed world to do anything other than a marginal or peripheral job, be it in the way of investment, technical assistance or development. The really big money that is being spent and wasted by the developed world is in the armaments area. Until there is a reduction in world tension and in conflict, until positive and practical steps are taken towards disarmament, both in the conventional and in the nuclear area, the enormous funds required will not be available to do the massive job required to equalise the North and the South.

Apart from the economic and financial blizzard that has hit the developed world since the Brandt Report was issued and which is circumscribing the developed countries in regard to the assistance they are giving and which is causing them to cut back on their development aid — this does not apply just to Ireland but to all countries in the developed world — unfortunately there has been an increase in world tension and potential conflicts. Thus, the disarmament process which we all see as the only approach to provide the funds we are talking about is running into heavy weather in the discussions that are taking place. I attended such discussions in Geneva in recent months. At present the conference in Madrid is engaged in a long procedural wrangle. I hope to be there for the opening of the substantive part of the business in a few weeks' time. I hope there will be progress but frankly I am not optimistic. A climate of tension is building up in Europe itself — in Poland, in the increased visa restrictions on travel to East Germany — and there is also the conflict in the Middle East between Iraq and Iran.

This is a difficult period on the political scene, one that does not engender optimism, but we must keep negotiating, we must keep talking and keep people around the table. I feel that the CSCE conference in Madrid should be attended by as many Ministers of the Community and of the western European world as is possible to ensure that some steps are taken to bring people together in the spirit of Helsinki. We must ensure there is enforcement of the Helsinki Agreement and that there are new provisions to develop détente further. The French have a proposal for that agenda which is being supported by all members of the Community which proposes a European disarmament conference — excluding nuclear weapons at the start — that would be concerned with a phased reduction of conventional weapons to cover the entire area from the Atlantic to the Urals. A number of other proposals dealing with confidence-building measures are also being proposed.

There is also the aspect to which Deputy Quinn referred, namely, the implementation of the human rights provisions of the Helsinki Agreement. Frankly, there have been difficulties with some east European countries and with the Soviet Union with regard to this matter. As a country, we take up these cases and try to follow them on an individual basis. In the conference we will seek to ensure that progress is made in a harmonious way with regard to the three baskets as they are called, trying to knit in the three areas — the area of human rights and human relations, the area of economic co-operation and the area of military disarmament in general, with a view to obtaining a reduction in weapons and taking some confidence-building measures.

The conference at Madrid has started and we hope it will get down to some substantive business in a few weeks' time and emerge with some progress made. It is important to keep the concept of détente alive because with all its deficiencies in implementation and with all the polemics that have surrounded it, it still represents the most forward-looking concept in offering some hope of bringing east and west together in their mutual interest on the lines of the three areas I mentioned, namely, a reduction in weaponry, economic co-operation and human rights. Unfortunately the Belgrade conference which followed Helsinki was a failure and if Madrid is a failure it will be very serious so far as détente is concerned. Therefore, it is important to make the Madrid conference a success, to show we are still talking and that some measures have been taken that will offer hope to a world that needs it.

I wish to repeat what I said in answer to a question last week. The target of .7 per cent in regard to contributions from donor countries in respect of development assistance was reached by agreement between the donor and the recipient countries at the United Nations. They recognised the facts of life as I spelled them out here. They know that there is no Utopian situation in the developed world and that there are over eight million people unemployed within the EEC. They themselves agreed to this formulation at the recent meeting I attended at the UN and it will be formally adopted at the present session as being, in all the circumstances of the time, the best formulation to ensure in a spirit of realism that a percentage target of that kind will be achieved by the developed world throughout the eighties, I know it is not enough but it is the best that can be done at present.

Deputy Quinn raised the matter of Zimbabwe. In regard to the adherence of Zimbabwe to the Lomé Convention, the media took out of context a purely negotiating matter which caused delay of only 24 hours and implied that other countries were holding up this process. Nothing could be further from the truth. Everything was agreed at a subsequent meeting of the Council of Ministers and Zimbabwe is now in the course of becoming a full member of Lomé with the right of access for 8,100 tons of beef. Our main concern was to ensure that it would be kept under a ceiling which had already been agreed and to co-operate with other countries such as Botswana, Swaziland and Kenya who are not able to reach their quotas because of various disease factors. The net result is that Zimbabwe, along with existing Lomé II countries exporting beef to the EEC, is now held under this ceiling. Unfortunately the reality for Zimbabwe is that it will not be able to meet these targets for two years because of foot and mouth disease. I am glad to have had the opportunity of explaining this matter because it gave rise to some misunderstanding.

Deputy Quinn raised a very fundamental point concerning the question of balancing our role as an independent country with our role as a member of the Community participating in discussions and decisions on European political co-operation. I agree that it is a difficult role for any country but a very important one in which this country carries for greater weight through being a member of a Community of nine countries and contributing to the moulding of Community decisions than it would have as a voice crying in the wilderness. The very fact of our involvement in decisions concerning European political co-operation within the Community adds far more to what we can achieve because we are accepted in the Community as a disinterested country in the sense that we do not have any major economic or political involvement.

All Governments since we became an independent nation have adopted that stance and it is a stance which is particularly suited to a small country which never had major overseas involvement in terms of empire, wealth or military involvement of any kind. That has been our major source of strength and we are regarded as being genuinely neutral and responsible. The position we have always taken at the United Nations can now be adopted in the area of political co-operation within the Nine. Inevitably this does involve a certain dilution of capacity to act completely independently. If after discussion a consensus decision is reached, we go along with it unless it is against the fundamental interests of our country. At the same time we have always managed to maintain an independent role at the UN.

There are many areas in which we do not agree with the European view. We would not, for instance, agree with some of the military or disarmament views of most of our colleagues within the Community. We have a far more pronounced and progressive attitude in the area of disarmament than any of our colleagues within the Community and will continue to hold our very strong views on that subject and speak on it in a reasonably independent and disinterested manner. I take Deputy Quinn's point that there are certain difficulties but the undoubted gain lies in pursuing an independent role in the area of European political co-operation and within the UN, seeking at the same time to go along with consensus decisions when there is no vital national interest involved or a matter about which we feel very strongly such as disarmament. Overseas development aid took up the major part of the discussion and there does not appear to be any conflict in regard to other matters covered by the Supplementary Estimate. The "A Sense of Ireland" promotion was mentioned and I take the point about further developments of that idea. However, it is sufficient to say that it was costly and this is always a factor in any promotion of that kind.

Deputy Quinn raised the matter of certain posts which were not filled and the savings which accrued. The posts to which he referred were incorporated in the Estimate at too early a stage and are now in the course of being filled. There is no question of any running down of staff. It was simply fortuitous that there was a delay in making the appointments.

I thank the House for a very constructive debate and appreciate the interest shown in the matter of overseas development aid.

Vote put and agreed to.
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