I am proceeding now to deal with Private Notice Questions.
Private Notice Questions. - Famine in Ethiopia.
A Deputy
What about the six minutes we lost?
I have had Private Notice Questions from Deputies Nora Owen, Dick Spring and Peter Barry. I deem the questions in order. I will now call the Deputies in the order in which they submitted the questions to my office. Will Deputy Nora Owen please put her question?
asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he will make available immediately emergency funds for the people of Ethiopia in view of the horrifying prospect of further mass starvation as witnessed in that country in 1984.
asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if, in view of the imminence of another devastating tragedy in Ethiopia, he will make a statement on the Government's proposed response.
asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if, in view of the urgent need for relief to combat the threatened famine in Ethiopia, he will make funds available to Irish relief organisations which can dispense those funds in the worst affected areas.
On behalf of the Minister, with your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, I propose to take the three questions on Ethiopia together.
The Government are very concerned about the situation in northern Ethiopia where millions of people are threatened with famine. Ethiopia has always been a country with a food deficit — due to the conflicts there it has not been possible to deliver food in sufficient quantities, following drought and harvest failure this year, which has proved more severe than anticipated earlier.
The Government already allocated £50,000 to Trócaire on 7 November for food purchase for Tigre and will be allocating very shortly further funds to organisations which are capable of getting relief supplies delivered to those in need.
Ireland will continue to do whatever it can in co-operation with its partners in the European Community to impress on the parties in conflict in Eritrea the absolute priority that should be given to the welfare of the population and the need to allow necessary relief supplies through unhindered to famine affected areas.
The European Community has been to the forefront in responding to the needs of the situation: the key problem at present, however is the question of access which I hope that international pressure will be successful in resolving speedily.
Can the Minister of State arrange, as was done in 1984 when Ireland held the Presidency and the last devastating famine hit Ethiopia, that he or the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Collins, on behalf of the Presidency of the EC, will travel to Ethiopia to assess the situation and arrange, as was done then through the Dublin plan, to make large quantities of food available to the people of Ethiopia? Could he clarify whether there are stocks of surplus grain and milk powder in Ireland which could be given to the Irish agency CONCERN who are arranging for a ship to travel from Ireland to the port of Massawa in northern Eritrea?
The question the Deputy raises was raised last Tuesday and again yesterday with our partners in the Community. The French Presidency is undertaking certain measures.
The big problem is that it is impossible to get food into Ethiopia. The bulk of the food at present is coming in through the Sudan and there are grave problems in actually distributing it. Food is available but the big problem is access.
While I welcome the Minister's recognition that there is a serious problem I would ask him if he is aware — and I am sure he is — that our total allocation to international co-operation has decreased from £28.052 million in 1986 to around £22.829 million this year? Would the Minister not accept that we should now, on an emergency basis, seek to increase our total allocation for international co-operation and to use whatever services and whatever political strength we have in relation to our European partners to look for access, which the Minister outlined as being the problem, but to back up that request by a special emergency sum of money from this Government to avoid the deaths of millions of people in the coming months?
I can reassure the Deputy that his request in relation to our need to back up and to urge our Community partners to take action has already been carried out. We have also provided extra money and the extra money is available.
May I ask the Minister if there are not three levels on which action should be taken. First, at the influential level involving the meeting between President Gorbachev and President Bush which will take place in the Mediterranean shortly that they should intervene with the Ethiopian Government to allow the relief — that is part of the problem — to get to the affected areas. Second, at the European level, the European Council of Ministers should use their influence along North Africa, in the Sudan, in Ethiopia and in Kenya to ensure that the relief gets through those countries and into Ethiopia. Third, would the Government not agree that they should provide more money than they are providing at present? Yesterday the British Government provided £2 million. On that basis the Irish Government should provide well over £100,000; even on a meagrely pro rata basis that would be the sum of money that would be appropriate.
We are in a position to supply more than £100,000 but as the Deputy has suggested——
Will it supply——
——we will supply that money to the relief organisations who can dispense those funds in the best possible manner and in the worst affected areas. I can also reassure him that, as I said earlier, the matter was raised last Tuesday and also yesterday in discussions in the Community in both the development council and in the general affairs council.
May I ask the Minister, in view of the urgency of the matter, whether he would consider, through the prestige of the upcoming Presidency of the EC and, indeed, the current position in the EC, a meeting with the Ethiopian authorities? The logjam seems to rest with the Ethiopian authorities and the whole question of access seems to be with or without their permission. Surely the answer to the problem is to ask the Minister to arrange with his colleagues in the European Community to meet with the Ethiopian authorities to remove this logjam. Is it not a fact that the Ethiopian authorities are attacking provisions through what is left of access to these tragic groups of people? I would ask that an emergency meeting be arranged with the Ethiopian authorities urgently.
My understanding is that a meeting took place in Addis Ababa yesterday in which a number of the various agencies in the city took part. I want to assure the Deputy that the Government will do everything possible to co-operate with our European partners to bring about easy access. Access is the key. My understanding is that there is quite an amount of food available but that unfortunately the key to the problem is access. We will do all we can to make certain that the food gets through.
I want to dissuade Members from assuming that they may debate this matter now. I have allowed some questions.
(Interruptions.)
Order, allow the Chair to make a remark. I will call the Deputies that have been offering if they will be very brief.
I welcome the Minister's assurance that we will assist our European partners. I would ask him to give some lead and to allow the Irish people did down through the last number of years, when funds were raised for the Third World. Surely the Minister is aware that next year we are proposing to spend 0.13 per cent of GNP on Third World aid as opposed to the United Nations target of 0.7 per cent of GNP. I believe he would find no objection from any of the parties in this House if he were to outline a sum far greater than that mentioned and if he would bring in a Supplementary Estimate this week. I would also urge that he take up Deputy Andrew's suggestion to have an emergency meeting either through the EC partners or directly with the Ethiopian Government to break the logjam and to get food to these people before January when the calamity is about to commence.
I had hoped for brevity.
I will take Deputy Spring's remarks into account. It is not money that is the problem at present but access.
From the point of view of giving the lead would the Minister not accept that in last famine in 1984 Ireland gave the major lead in responding to the Geldof appeal, supported by the then Government and would he do the same now? Second, and more importantly, would he accept that the problem of access and distribution will only be resolved at political level in Ethiopia and will he not ensure that a political representative of the Community will go to Addis Ababa and meet Chairman Mengista as I did on behalf of the Community during our Presidency in 1984, so that those problems can be cleared at political level? Would the Minister ensure that that is done now and done quickly?
I regret very much Deputy O'Keeffe's effort to make this a political matter.
For Heaven's sake.
It is not a political matter. As Deputy O'Keeffe will remember, Ireland was in the Presidency at that stage, Ireland is not in the Presidency at present.
We will be in a few weeks time.
We will be there in a few weeks' time and we will see what we can do then. As I have already said, this matter has been raised twice in the last few weeks with the Presidency and they are taking certain actions.
It is not sufficient.
Arising out of one of his replies may I ask the Minister to make contact, as soon as the debate ends, with Fr. Jack Finucane who has, only this day, returned from the region where he has assured me that access to food is still available through the port of Massadoa and to arrange to provide the funds that are required by agencies such as Concern and Trócaire to bring food aid immediately to these people?
I also heard Fr. Finucane this morning on radio.
Did you meet with him and talk with him?
The reality is that my information — and our information is scarce because we have no people in Ethiopia——
Why did the Minister not talk to him?
A number of our NGOs had to take their personnel out of Ethiopia because of fears for their safety. I will do everything I can. I have already done it twice in the last week but I will continue to do it as Deputy Owen has suggested.
Let us have finality.
Would the Minister agree that because many people have had to leave Ethiopia the problem has become much more urgent on the political level? If the Minister chooses to bring in a supplementary estimate this week — which we would welcome — to deal with the problem it will get speedy passage from this party.
I would like to thank Deputy Barry for his offer. At present the problem is not money, it is access.
It is money as well.
That disposes of questions for today.