I move:
(1) That Dáil Éireann concurs with Seanad Éireann in its Resolution communicated to Dáil Éireann on 9th December, 1981, that it is expedient that a Joint Committee on both Houses of the Oireachtas (which shall be called the Joint Committee on Co-operation with Developing Countries) be established consisting of 11 members of Dáil Éireann and 7 members of Seanad Éireann (none of whom shall be a member of the Government or a Minister of State) to examine:
such aspects of
(a) Ireland's relations with developing countries in the field of development co-operation, and
(b) the Government's Official Development Assistance programme,
as the Committee may select and to report thereon to both Houses of the Oireachtas.
(2) That provision be made for the appointment of substitutes to act for members of the Joint Committee who are unable to attend particular meetings.
(3) That the Joint Committee, previous to the commencement of business, shall elect one of its members to be Chairman, who shall have only one vote.
(4) That all questions in the Joint Committee shall be determined by a majority of votes of the members present and voting and in the event of there being an equality of votes the question shall be decided in the negative.
(5) That every report which the Joint Committee proposes to make shall on adoption by the Joint Committee be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas forthwith, whereupon the Joint Committee shall be empowered to print and publish such report together with such related documents as it thinks fit.
(6) That 5 members of the Joint Committee shall form a quorum of whom at least 1 shall be a member of Dáil Éireann and at least 1 shall be a member of Seanad Éireann.
The motion before the House is the second stage in the procedure to establish a Joint Committee of the Oireachtas on Co-operation with Developing Countries. The first stage was completed last December when a similar motion of expediency was passed by the Seanad. The Committee is to consist of 18 members of the Oireachtas, 11 members of the Dáil and seven members of the Seanad.
This Government have a clear and unequivocal commitment to increasing Ireland's contribution to Developing Countries through Official Development Assistance (ODA). The 1981 ODA allocation represented 0.18 per cent of our GNP. The joint programme agreed between the two parties in the Government includes a specific commitment to increase Ireland's ODA by annual increments of at least 0.05 per cent of GNP so that the United Nations target of 0.7 per cent of GNP can be achieved by the end of the decade. Despite the enormous pressure on the public finances which we are experiencing at present, the Government are fulfilling this commitment. The total provision for ODA in 1982 is £26.335 million representing 0.23 per cent of GNP. This figure involves an increase of over 46 per cent over the 1981 allocation and the provision of this sum in 1982 ensures that the Government commitment is met in full. This is a substantial increase in real terms and will result in a significant expansion of our multi-lateral and bilateral assistance to developing countries.
This assistance is given partly because of obligations arising out of our membership of various international organisations but largely because of a conviction that we, who are relatively prosperous, have a moral responsibility to contribute our share to help those who are less well off than ourselves. We do not seek any return from this work for ourselves and yet the term `development co-operation' indicates that it is a two-way process. In return for our assistance to developing countries, we gain the friendship and respect of these peoples, a great deal of new experience and a degree of satisfaction at seeing the skills and expertise, which we have gained in the course of our own development, being used for the benefit of others.
There are, in addition, more tangible benefits in the form of contracts in developing countries financed by multilateral aid organisations and greater trading possibilities with these countries. We do not reject these spin-off benefits although they are certainly not the prime motivation of our development assistance efforts. Neither do we construct our aid programmes simply to attract these benefits. However, we recognise that development co-operation is not a one-way transfer of resources from Ireland to developing countries but a co-operative process in which both sides can benefit. For example, in 1981, semi-State bodies alone earned around £28 million from projects in developing countries which was far in excess of total ODA, both multilateral and bilateral, for that year. I hope that the joint committee will recognise and reaffirm the propriety and the importance of these benefits for this country.
In looking at our ODA the joint committee will no doubt wish to include our participation in the European Community's development assistance programmes. Our contribution to these programmes in now the single largest element of our Official Development Assistance. In 1981, the Community's total aid to developing countries amounted to more than £1 billion of which Ireland's contribution was approximately £6.4 million.
The second largest element in our ODA, and the one that receives perhaps the most attention, is our bilateral aid programme. This was established in 1974, arising out of a recognition by the Government of the moral responsibility I spoke of earlier, that despite the economic and social problems that existed in this country, Ireland was still one of the wealthiest nations in the world and as such had an obligation to make some contribution to those who were immeasurably poorer and less developed than ourselves.
Total expenditure on the Bilateral Aid Programme last year amounted to £5.12 million. A further £1.42 million was allocated to other areas of bilateral assistance including the Agency for Personal Service Overseas and Disaster Relief.
The Bilateral Aid Programme is concentrated on four `priority' countries in Africa—Lesotho, Tanzania, Zambia and Sudan—which between them receive more than 60 per cent of total expenditure. Concentrating our assistance in this way allows us to obtain the maximum effectiveness from our aid by building up coherent programmes with the full support and participation of the host countries. This policy also enables the public at home to see the results of our efforts and helps to secure the necessary public support and encouragement for the programme.
Since I became Minister of State I have had an opportunity to visit three of the four priority countries, Lesotho, Tanzania and Zambia. My most enduring memory of these visits is of the enormous disparity that exists between the living standards in these countries and in Ireland, despite the very real economic and social problems we have here in this country. It is difficult to describe adequately the terrible extent of poverty, disease and the lack of all sorts of services that we take for granted, such as education, health and social services. An indication of the huge gulf that exists between Ireland and these developing countries may be gained from looking at the figures for GNP per capita published by the World Bank. In 1979, GNP per head in Tanzania was US$260. In Ireland in the same year, the figure was US$4,210 — sixteen times greater.
Most of the projects in our priority countries are technical assistance ones, involving mainly the provision of specialist skills accompanied in some cases by small amounts of capital aid. This sort of assistance is particularly suitable for a small country such as Ireland which can never hope to be a major donor of capital aid. In the course of our own development, however, we have gained important skills and expertise which are directly relevant to developing countries, many of which are facing the sort of problems we faced in this country not so very long ago.
The Bilateral Aid Programme also includes a substantial degree of support for the activities of the voluntary organisations engaged in overseas development. Last year almost £½ million was allocated to the co-financing projects with these organisations and this year the provision will be more than doubled to £1 million. I am very conscious that these organisations are the very bedrock of our development co-operation efforts. Long before our official development assistance was instituted, Irish missionaries and lay volunteers were travelling to developing countries in their thousands. Whether their motives were developmental or pastoral, these people have had an enormous impact on the people they have assisted. They have provided leadership, education, training, support and, above all, motivation. How many villages in Africa, Asia and Latin America learned the rudiments of agriculture, health and education from an Irishman or woman. We owe a great debt of gratitude to these people for the inspiration they have given us and the example they have set us.
I believe very strongly that our official aid programmes must not in any way seek to supplant or replace the efforts of the voluntary organisations but on the contrary should try to complement and reinforce them. In addition to increasing the budget for co-financing projects with the voluntary organisations, I will be looking at other ways in which we can co-operate with them and I would hope that the joint committee would consider this question also.
Development co-operation is not just about programmes but about policies as well: policies that cover a wide range of areas which touch on virtually every aspect of life in this country, including food production, energy, commodities, trade, industrialisation, and finance. The European Community has repeatedly emphasised that co-operation between developed and developing countries and the intensification of international economic relations serve the interests of all countries. In an interdependent world, it is not simply a matter of increasing the flow of aid funds to developing countries; it is much more a question of integrating them as rapidly and as fully as possible into the global economic structure. Many of these issues have far-reaching implications for our own domestic, economic and social policies that must be faced up to. There are no easy solutions and, indeed, in some cases it is not entirely clear what the real problems are. If we have learned anything from the Brandt Report it is that the problems of developing countries are also our problems and if we are to look forward to a world of peace and prosperity for all countries and peoples, solutions to these problems must be found before it is too late.
We have had over seven years of almost continuous dialogue and negotiations between developed and developing countries and the solutions may seem as far away as ever. No one can deny that the results of the so-called North-South Dialogue have been meagre and disappointing for the most part. But this need not inhibit some optimism regarding the future. The search for a new method of approach in the dialogue will hopefully lead to a fresh beginning this year. Many Deputies will know that a proposal to start a round of global negotiations on international economic co-operation within the United Nations system was made two years ago. These would cover all of the major issues in the fields of food, commodities, trade, energy, industrialisation, and financial matters.
Ireland, along with the other members of the European Community, has been very active in the preparations for the global negotiations at the United Nations and we are hopeful that they will get under way this year. In the present world economic situation there can be no alternative to a process of negotiations dealing with the vast range of practical problems facing both developed and developing countries. Neither side can hope to solve these problems on its own; only the joint efforts of both sides can ensure steady progress in all areas covering issues which affect the future of all countries. The Brandt Report, in its endorsement of the proposal of global negotiations last year, noted that the basis for these negotiations was inter-dependence and mutuality of interests. North-South co-operation is not a one-way street. It vitally affects our future too, not perhaps in the same life or death way as for many countries in Asia and Africa, but in a longer-term perspective. That is why the global negotiations we seek must be designed to tackle both immediate problems and long-term structural changes, which can place the global economy on a safer and sounder basis. I do not have the time to look at each of the main areas which will be covered by the global negotiations — obviously trade and energy are of particular interest to us — but I would like to speak briefly of another vitally important area, especially for many developing countries.
Food will, I am sure, be a subject of very pressing interest to the joint committee. The Irish are now in general one of the best fed peoples on earth but it was not always so. Memories of the Great Famine are still very much alive in our folk memory. But even that tragedy, terrible as it was, pales in comparison with the poverty that exists in the developing regions of the world at the present time. It is estimated that 750 million people are living in absolute poverty and a further 420 million people do not have their basic minimum food requirement each day. The generous response of the public to voluntary bodies engaged in development activities is, I suspect, particularly remarkable in the case of those activities which attempt to alleviate hunger and to tackle its underlying causes. Given this feeling of solidarity with hungry peoples, it is entirely appropriate that our bilateral aid programme should give priority to food production projects and that foodrelated measures should account for a hefty share of the multilateral commitments which Ireland has undertaken. The scale and complexity of the problem of world hunger have elicited a whole range of responses and proposed responses. Despite the very different standpoints from which they approach the problem, the participants at the Cancun Summit managed to reach a greater measure of agreement on how to tackle this most critical problem than they did on other matters. It is my earnest hope that the measure of agreement reached at Cancun can be translated into prompt and effective international action against hunger.
The proposed terms of reference of the joint committee are set out in the motion before the House. They provide for consideration by the committee of all aspects of Ireland's relations with developing countries in the field of development co-operation, including the Government's official development assistance programme. I have deliberately made the terms of reference as wide as possible so as not to limit the committee's field of study. I did give consideration to making the terms of reference more specific but I felt that it would be wrong to constrain or delimit the committee's brief in any way. The field is a very broad one with many complex and interlinking elements and I believe it is necessary that the committee should be free to choose the area they wish to consider and the order in which to consider them.
I have also considered the possibility of enabling Members of either House, including Members of the European Parliament who are not also members of the committee, to take part in the proceedings. This point was raised during the debate on the Motion of Expediency in the Seanad. Deputies will be aware that Standing Orders provide for the attendance at meetings of joint committees by any visitor unless they are specifically excluded by the committee. These members would not have the right to vote but could contribute to discussions with the committee's agreement. Consequently, there is no necessity to make specific provision for this in the terms of reference of the committee. Given the pressure of work on Deputies and Senators, the number of members provided for in the terms of reference is, in my view, a realistic estimate of the number of members that will be able to contribute actively and regularly to the committee's work. However, I would hope that as the committee progress, more and more Members from both Houses will take part in its deliberations. If this happens, I will be happy to consider increasing the size of the committee at a later stage.
One of the areas in which I believe the committee will have an important contribution to make is development education. This is an area of great personal interest to me because I am convinced that it is only through increasing the level of awareness in Ireland of developing countries and the problems they face that the necessary support for and commitment to solving these problems will be generated. We must also consider the impact of developing countries' problems on Ireland. Many of these problems — for example, industrial re-structuring — have implications for the developed world which we in Ireland must face up to. We must recognise that in the long term it is as much in our interest to solve these problems as it is in the interest of developing countries. We must also recognise the vast and increasing degree of interdependence that exists between the developed and developing worlds. This need not be a source of fear or suspicion to us but rather a challenge to seek solutions to the problems of developing countries in a way that strengthens and reinforces our own prosperity.
The joint committee will have an important role to play in the development education process by focusing attention on these questions and giving a positive lead to public opinion. I believe that this lead will be followed and that the joint committee will have a positive and beneficial influence on the formation of public attitudes to developing countries. In this way the necessary support for Ireland's contribution to those countries will be increased.
This joint committee is somewhat different to others in that they are not being asked to study a specific area at a specific time. They are asked to study the entire field of Ireland's relations with developing countries in the field of development co-operation on a continuous basis and in this way to contribute to the formulation of Government policies in this area. Ireland already enjoys a high reputation with developing countries and the committee begin their work, therefore, at an auspicious time. It is my hope that the joint committee will help the Government to build on this foundation and, in co-operation with all the organisations in Ireland engaged in development, to fashion an even greater and more durable contribution by Ireland to developing countries for the benefit of all our peoples.