Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 7 Dec 1989

Vol. 123 No. 11

Famine Relief for Ethiopia: Motion.

Mr. Lanigan

I move:

That Seanad Éireann approves of the allocations made by the Government for emergency famine relief for Ethiopia and urges the Government to continue to assist the diplomatic efforts to ensure that supplies reach those in need.

I accept the reservations made by the Leader of the Opposition to the wording of this motion, but the motion itself gives everybody an opportunity to address the problem. We are not here to do anything else but to make certain that the beleaguered people in Ethiopia and in other places where there is famine should get the maximum relief in the shortest possible time, and that that relief goes to the people who urgently need it.

There are major problems in regard to relief to countries such as Ethiopia, all Third World countries. Unfortunately, cash from Governments is not always the proper method by which aid should be transmitted.

Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (Mr. Calleary)

May I begin by saying that I appreciate the concern underlying the motion on the situation in Ethiopia and say that the Government share that concern. As the House is aware, the Government have taken practical steps to assist in the major international efforts being undertaken to provide the necessary relief supplies and to ensure that they reach those in need. It will continue these efforts over the coming months.

Before describing these in detail, I wish to outline some of the background to the food supply situation in Ethiopia. It is a country with a structural food deficit. It does not grow enough food to feed its population even in good years, and as it is one of the poorest countries in the world, with an estimated GNP per capita of $120 per annum, it has to rely on food aid supplies to meet the shortfall. In addition, there are a number of internal and cross-border conflicts in the Horn of Africa where Ethiopia is situated, with the result that there are some 700,000 refugees from Sudan and Somalia who have sought refuge in Ethiopia. These are being looked after by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and other aid agencies.

The situation at present in Ethiopia is that the main 1989 harvest, which should now be available to feed the population and their livestock, has been poor in many areas in Northern Ethiopia and in some areas in the South. It has failed almost completely in Eritrea and in eastern Tigre, which extends over the north and north-east of Ethiopia. In both of these areas there are internal conflicts with rebel movements opposing Government forces. These hamper delivery of relief supplies, particularly to Tigre which is entirely in rebel hands. The main access roads into Tigre from the south and south-west are closed.

Due to the conflict, it is difficult to be precise about requirements, but estimates of approximately four million people at risk and requiring some three-quarters of a million tonnes of food aid during 1990 appear likely to be realistic. These are very large figures, but by late November about one-fifth of this had been pledged by the donor community and more has been offered since. It will need a continued and concerted effort by everyone, but it is possible to provide the requisite supplies. A Government of Ethiopia appeal in November 1987 for over one million tonnes of food aid was met with 50,000 tonnes delivered in 1987, over 900,000 tonnes in 1988 and 75,000 in 1989. Ireland contributed £250,000 in November 1987 in the context of that appeal.

The 1988 harvest was good and food aid requirements were low. The 1989 harvest, as I have indicated, has been very poor in many areas and available supplies within Ethiopia are currently at dangerously low levels, although they are being built up as rapidly as possible as aid agencies obtain funds and send supplies. Progress cannot yet be reported on providing access by the most effective routes to the estimated two million people at risk in Tigre. Some supplies are getting through via the Sudan and surplus grains in areas which had better harvests are being purchased for deficit areas. Neither of these sources is capable of providing the quantities which will be needed from early 1990.

So far, there are reports of only limited numbers of people migrating in search of food but I regret to say that these numbers appear to be increasing. The disruption to normal livelihoods and to the fragile farming systems and commerce caused by migration, the dangers of disease in crowded conditions, the extra costs of relief operations where shelter, water supplies etc. have to be provided as well as food, all of these arise with the formation of large-scale camps. I earnestly hope that these dangers can be avoided.

I would like now to outline to the Seanad what has been done to date by the Government bilaterally and as part of the Community. On 7 November last, I allocated the funds requested in response to an appeal from Trócaire on behalf of REST, the Relief Society of Tigre, for £50,000 for the purchase of food in parts of Tigre which had a good crop this year for distribution in deficit areas. This type of relief operation is very useful in that it provides a market for surpluses where they occur and generally involves transportation over distances which can be measured at most in hundreds rather than thousands of miles. Unfortunately, such surpluses are limited. Within Tigre — which is about the size of Ireland — available supplies are estimated at about 50,000 tonnes and about one-sixth of requirements there.

On Tuesday of this week, I allocated a further £250,000 for Ethiopian relief in the light of a series of applications made by agencies between 24 November and 4 December. This amount includes £20,000 for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) for a programme of assistance for 30,000 Sudanese children in Ethiopia. The allocation also included £45,000 for the purchase of a truck, trailer and spares for Christian Aid on behalf of the Eritrean Relief Association which is running a major operation to bring supplies from Port Sudan to Eritrea. A further £50,000 has been allocated to Oxfam in Ireland. As Senators are aware, Oxfam is involved in several parts of Ethiopia. It is bringing in supplies by sea and also buying sorghum in western Sudan near to the Ethiopian border for distribution in Ethiopia. I have allocated £60,000 to Concern towards a programme including the delivery of a supply ship to Ethiopia and the relief operation in Wallaita Province in Southern Ethiopia. The Irish Red Cross has been allocated £35,000 in respect of the League of Red Cross in Red Crescent Societies' appeal for aid to help 300,000 people in Northern and Southern Ethiopia. Finally, GOAL has been allocated £40,000 in respect of a consignment of high energy biscuits which it has purchased for delivery to Ethiopia.

The amounts provided constitute a very substantial response from the Government, bringing total famine relief aid to Ethiopia to £300,000 for this year. This is in addition to £150,000 provided earlier in the year for medical supplies and logistics to help combat the meningitis epidemic which hit Ethiopia earlier this year.

As a member of the European Community, Ireland has contributed its share of some £25 million worth of European Community emergency food aid for Ethiopia in 1989. The Community has been among the first to respond to the needs arising from the failure of the 1989 harvest and Ireland will continue to support the allocation of further supplies as required.

On the political side, as the scale of potential food shortages in Tigre and the consequent need for additional supply routes became apparent in November, the Community representatives, along with other donors in Addis Ababa, asked the Ethiopian Government to agree to the opening of supply routes along the main roads. This has not as yet met with a favourable response.

The situation has been discussed by Community Ministers on a number of occasions and a further effort to persuade the Ethiopian authorities to change their minds is currently being arranged. The Minister for Foreign Affairs has conveyed a request to the Soviet Government seeking their assistance in relation to the appeal from aid agencies that the Ethiopian Government permit emergency and other supplies to get through to the areas threatened by famine. Other European Governments have done likewise.

At the OECD Development Assistance Committee high level meeting in Paris earlier this week Ireland, with other delegations, pressed the group to do everything they could to get supplies into Ethiopia. It has to be said that the Ethiopian Government is not convinced that the situation in Tigre is as serious as international reports suggest. It has stressed the military considerations involved for them in dealing with rebel forces, understood to be within 100 miles of Addis Ababa.

The Government hope the Ethiopian authorities will change their minds and they will do all they can to help. However, it should be understood that in addition to public démarches, much patient, low-profile work by representatives on the ground is going on, and will be important in achieving results.

I wish to conclude by making a brief comparison with the situation in 1984. The harvest failure in that year affected about seven million people in Ethiopia. It was the third successive year of crop failure and the population was already destitute. The Ethiopian Government, donor agencies and NGOs had very limited structures for identifying needs and delivering aid as compared with the situation now. The Government's Relief and Rehabilitation Commission has good information and delivery systems supplemented by those of donor agencies in areas where it has access. The Eritreans and Tigreans have parallel structures in their own areas.

Development work, to improve the capacity of the country to provide food for itself has made some impact since 1984. However, it must be remembered that Ethiopia is a desperately poor and underdeveloped country, torn by internal conflict and that it will take many years for it to recover from the effects of land degradation and erosion and to develop a modern economy.

In making these comparisons, I wish to make clear that I do not wish to minimise the present situation — it is very serious and potentially catastrophic — but I believe that if it is taken very seriously by everyone at this stage results can be achieved much more quickly than in 1984-85.

Mr. Lanigan

In discussions with Members of the House it has been decided that the maximum time to be allowed to each speaker will be ten minutes. We hope, however, they will conclude their contributions within seven minutes. The reason is not to curtail discussion but to allow as many Senators as possible to speak, either in agreeing or disagreeing with the motion.

An Leas-Chathoirleach

Is the time limit agreed? Agreed.

Professor Raftery

As already indicated by Senator Manning, I will be introducing an amendment to this motion. As a professor of agriculture and a former member of the council of Gorta I have a very deep interest in this whole problem of famine and the causes of famine. Furthermore, my knowledge of the problem is continually updated by information I get from past students who come back on visits to Ireland. Indeed, no later than August of this year I had a long meeting with the head of the African Animal Research Organisation, which is located in Addis Ababa, and Dr. Walsh is a past student and doing very excellent work there. The green revolution of the late sixties and early seventies held out great hope that the problem of hunger would be solved and certainly it worked very well in India, Pakistan and, to a lesser extent, Bangladesh. These countries, particularly India and Pakistan, who had been threatened with famine year in and year out are now in balance, and in some cases in surplus, as far as wheat and rice is concerned.

Africa is now the real black spot. For approximately 900 million people the progress made in the seventies in the area of food security, literacy and health care has been reversed. Average incomes throughout Africa and most of Latin America have fallen from 10 to 25 per cent in the 1980s. Spending on food, health and education has been severely curtailed. I quote from the 1989 UNICEF report:

The state of the world's children, the slowing down of progress and the reversal of hard won gains is largely invisible to the industrialised world, yet it is spreading hardship and human misery on a scale and of a severity unprecedented in the post-war era. For most of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean almost every economic signal points to the fact that development has been derailed. Per capita GNP has fallen. Debt repayments have risen to a quarter or more of all export earnings. Share of world market trade has dropped and the productivity of labour has declined by 1 or 2 percentage points each year throughout the 1980s.

It is against this background of unprecedented need that the cutbacks in the Irish Overseas Development Agency must be viewed and judged. The Irish people have spoken through their personal generosity and have expressed a wish that the Government would do likewise.

I would regard peace as a number one essential for success. It is the first essential for any progress towards success in these areas. The Irish Government should increase their political lobbying at every level to promote the peaceful settlement of conflicts without which we can have only continued famine in these areas.

The second essential for success I would regard as appropriate policies in relation to land use, food production and, of course, marketing of food also. The adoption of the communist collectivised farm systems by so many African countries has proved a disaster for Africa, as indeed it has proved for eastern Europe. We need a reversal of these policies. We need policies that are more realistic and that will stimulate local production and help to stimulate small farmers to produce the appropriate goods.

Thirdly, the appropriate technology is vitally important. Too often these backward countries opt for sophisticated production techniques more suited to well developed economies and giving them very unsatisfactory results.

Number four, no attempt to overcome the problem can overlook the extraordinary population growth rate in the areas least able to support such population density. I refer specifically to countries like Bangladesh and, of course, other southeast Asian countries and all of Africa, where the population growth is of the order of about 3 per cent per year. Any attempt to overcome the problem of these areas must tackle this problem of explosive population growth. Failure to do so is to close one's eyes to one of the real causes of famine, poverty, misery and ignorance, thus allowing the problem to grow and spread unabated.

A guaranteed and acceptable level of funding is a prerequisite for an effective, official development programme. The UN target of 0.7 per cent of GNP per annum is a benchmark for levels of Government funding for ODA programmes. Ireland's official development aid programme was first established by a Fine Gael Government in 1974. The ODA programme was developed in an effective and thoroughly professional manner. Up to the severe cutbacks of 1986 we enjoyed a growing reputation worldwide in development areas. Bilateral aid programmes were very successfully launched in Lesotho, Tanzania, Zambia and Sudan. The pioneering work of young, well-trained Irish workers set a headline for other developed countries to follow. NGOs also, such as Gorta, Trócaire and Concern, played and continue to play an important role in bringing about solutions to the famine threat.

The severe cash cutbacks since 1986, however, have posed a real problem for the continuation of the good work. I would urge the Seanad, therefore, to fix the budgetary allocation for official development assistance in 1990 at 0.25 per cent of GNP, the level provided in 1986, thereby reversing the severe reductions imposed in each of the last three years. Secondly, I would urge them to undertake that the level of official development assistance will thereafter be increased each year by the equivalent of at least 0.45 per cent of GNP until the total reaches the UN target of 0.7 per cent of GNP annually. Only by doing this can we get back to our former level of effectiveness in helping underdeveloped countries and in the process retrieve the good name and reputation we had so justly earned.

Finally, in relation to the present pressing problem in Ethiopia, let me say that, of course, we have to do all in our power to get food there. There is a simplistic idea abroad among people that all we have to do to help the peoples of the Third World is to throw our surplus food at them. That is not the solution. Our solution or our philosophy must be that of giving them a fishing rod rather than a fish. Of course, when they are hungry we must give the fish; but we must also give them the fishing rod and teach them how to fish in order that they will be able to feed themselves in the years ahead.

Mr. Fallon

I spoke three or four years ago on the problem of overseas aid with what I certainly regarded as a caring and humane approach. I spoke of the thousands of people, the thousands of children, who were daily dying of starvation in many parts of the Third World. Parts of that particular speech appeared in my local paper, a paper that the Leas-Chathaoirleach knows and he will probably remember the incident. Lo and behold, the following week a local Independent councillor got front page coverage for suggesting that the plight of the poor in Athlone and in Ireland was worse almost than in Ethiopia and other parts of the Third World. That is a very sad mentality for any person in this country. Thankfully, that applies to only a few people, but that attitude is there nonetheless. While I accept that we have poor in Ireland, certainly there is no evidence at all, thank God, that children are dying of starvation, because of the fact that we have so many worth while organisations who are playing a very major role, Meals on Wheels, the St. Vincent de Paul, health boards and so on who are there to help. It will not happen and in my opinion it could not happen in this country. The St. Vincent de Paul Society in their recent report indicated that we have poor in this country as indeed we all know. The report outlines a situation, most of which we knew already. In particular, it confirmed the opinion that long-term unemployment was a major factor in creating poverty.

Employment and economic growth are important elements in this debate and indeed in the debate as far as poverty in Ireland is concerned. Economic growth is vital to prosperity and prosperity is vital if we are to have an improved situation for the people of Ireland and for the people of the world. Therefore, we must look more closely at the exact relationship between economic growth and increased employment. This is the aim of the Government and has been the aim of successive Governments over the years.

Whether it is combating poverty or reducing emigration, the provision of well-paid employment is the key. The resumption of strong economic growth in 1989 and in succeeding years should lead to a substantial increase in employment. We must all ensure that happens. There is a relationship between economic growth and jobs — not a simple one. Experience has shown us it is certain that sustainable jobs cannot be created without growth. The reverse is not as clear, that is, that economic growth will automatically increase employment. As other countries have found, it is possible to have the right type of policies and sensible attitudes to improve employment. We have to pay as much attention to this as strengthening growth itself as has been proved elsewhere, in England in particular. The last link in the whole chain of economic growth is the creation of jobs.

Economic growth for this nation decides what we can give in overseas aid. Of course, all of us would like to give much more and this Government would like to give much more than we are giving. Nonetheless, I believe the Government are responding magnificently to the problems of the Third World. We are all concerned about the situation. We could not fail but be interested in the problems of Ethopia, Bangladesh, Sudan and so on. We see the harrowing plight of the pot-bellied children on our screens every night of the week, children soon to die from malnutrition. While the various voluntary organisations, Gorta, GOAL, Trócaire and Concern, are continuously doing great work over a long number of years, the people also respond magnificently. It is a natural situation that the people respond much more strongly and willingly when real emergencies arise, such as famine, floods, and so on.

Ethopia has always been a country with the problem of lack of food. We know now that due to conflict it has not been possible to deliver food in sufficient quantities following the drought and harvest difficulties. It has proved much more difficult and more severe than was previously anticipated. Apart from actual financial aid, we should at the highest political level try to be involved in ensuring that the necessary relief supplies will be allowed through unhindered to the most affected famine areas.

Many people have the idea that if food is shipped to Ethopia or Bangladesh or wherever the hungry children are feasting on it within 24 or 48 hours. That, of course, is not the case. Unfortunately, it takes months; and by the time it is properly shipped, got through customs and so on, the situation has worsened. When millions of pounds were provided, as was the case in the Bob Geldof Band Aid effort, of which we were all very proud, the idea then was that the money should be sent immediately. The problem is that there must be long rather than short-term spending. The reality is that the poorer the people the less ability they have to absorb the help. They are just too busy trying to survive from day to day to think about what might happen tomorrow or next week.

Unfortunately, much of the aid being sent to Ethiopia is not getting to its destination. It has been hijacked by a cruel and evil war. Despite what is being said, the Government here have responded very well in the circumstances. The Minister has indicated that the amount provided for total famine relief to Ethiopia is £300,000 for this year and this is in addition to £150,000 provided earlier in the year for Medical supplies to help deal with the meningitis epidemic which was there earlier in the year.

There are very real problems in the Third World and in Ethiopia in particular. There are reports of officials using the aid for their own use while innocent children suffer and die. It is a real problem. All Governments and all peoples have a moral duty to solve the famine problem in Ethiopia, whether it is by material means or by high powered international political influence, but I think the Irish people are magnificent in responding to these problems. While we have poor here at home, it is nothing like the horrific problems in Ethiopia. As long as these pictures of innocent children appear daily on our screens the heart of Ireland will go out to them and people will respond magnificently as in the past.

Dr. Upton

At the outset may I thank the Leader of the House for his very sensible suggestion that we limit the amount of time we give to this very important topic. There are enormous problems in Ethiopia and in the Third World. The solutions to these problems are long term and short term. What is needed is a joint approach. When people are starving provision has to be made to provide food. Unfortunately, that does not provide a solution further down the road. People have got in the longer term to be informed to the extent that they are able to look after themselves. It is very important that when we provide aid for people in these situations we bear that in mind, which I am confident the Irish aid workers do.

I am also confident that they bear in mind the necessity to use appropriate technologies or ideas, given the culture and attitude of many of these people. It is quite improper that some of the western technologies should be utilised or that we should seek to introduce them into Africa. They are just unsuitable. My understanding of Irish aid work is that it keeps that reality in mind and is in contrast with the attitude of some of the bigger countries in relation to how they approach problems of aid in third World countries.

I am sorry to say that our contribution as a country has declined very seriously in recent years. The Minister uses 1984 as his base line but I am inclined to use 1986 and 1987 as my base line. In 1986 this country was giving £40 million in Third World aid. That has declined to the order of £33 million in 1989. I understand there is some marginal increase in the actual amount of money, but the decline has not been arrested in terms of its proportion of the gross national product. In 1986 we were spending 0.25 per cent of our GNP on overseas aid but that has declined to 0.16 per cent this year. That is a very serious reduction, and it is something we should be ashamed of as a country.

More specifically, when you divide up the aid into the two broad categories under which it is given, you have multilateral aid and bilateral aid. We are in effect locked into multilateral aid because of international commitments and international agreements and our scope to change that is very limited. We do have scope to change the bilateral aid. However, I am very sorry to say that what we have done is to reduce it quite significantly. There has been a staggering 30 per cent reduction in 1987 — 30 per cent of the amount of money which, as it were, was at our discretion. I find it appalling that there was a further 10 per cent reduction in 1988. I accept that the cuts stopped at that stage and there has been a small increase in money terms this year.

There have been a series of knock-on effects from that. As I understand it, we have had to close our office in Sudan, one of the most appallingly poor countries in the world, a country which suffers from mind-bending levels of poverty and degradation when we look at it from the context of Ireland. I understand the Department of Finance were the main instigators of this idea. It seems to me to be a pity that they have not been resisted in their proposals. They have got this 30 per cent down a further 10 per cent. The idea from the Department of Finance, as I understand it, was to phase out bilateral aid fully. That would be awful and a terrible commentary on this country. What about our moral position? How can we, as it were, look the world in the eye, if that is the attitude we take? How can we take ourselves off to the European Community and start making special pleading because of our own underprivileged situation? We are certainly going to have taken away whatever credibility we have in relation to our attitude we have in relation to our attitude to the EC when that has been the background.

There is a lack of morality in our attitude to Third World aid. It is also extremely foolish if we are to look to any degree at the problems somewhat down the road. A lot of the money which is spent in these Third World countries simply comes back to Ireland. It comes back to us because of the fact that it is Irish people who are employed using that money to work in Third World countries. It comes back to Ireland because it is Irish products that are being purchased and used in those Third World countries. It comes back to Ireland because students from Third World countries come here to be educated. It comes back double, treble and four times because of the goodwill that is generated through the experiences of those Third World country students who come here and go back home with a very worthwhile and positive attitude to this country. It will come back further in as much as we are setting ourselves up in this country now as being a centre of excellence in education, a centre where people from Third World countries can come and be educated to a standard that is appropriate to their requirements.

When we cut back on things like bilateral aid we are cutting down on the contacts which have served us very well. Our position in the United Nations has been greatly aided because of the missionary work which has been done by Irish missionaries over the years. Certainly, our credibility with Third World countries on the world stage has been greatly enhanced because of that. Some of our leading Irish industrialists, for example, are prepared to talk on television when they meet people like Robert Mugabe because of the fact that he, too, like them, had a Jesuit education — provided, of course, by the Irish.

We were all justly proud, as Senator Fallon said, of the £7 million which was raised by Bob Geldof's Live Aid Concert. We were happy to congratulate ourselves on that and then, in a rather schizophrenic manner, we were prepared to slash the aid shortly afterwards. In case I appear to be negative, I have to say that I welcome the extra aid which has been given.

Undoubtedly, there are enormous problems in Third World countries. It is very important that we here should try to generate some ideas as to how these problems will be solved in the long term. I do not think we are being very active in that area. We have considerable scope to contribute to proposing ideas as to what the solutions might be in those areas. There are enormous problems in relation to the debts in those countries and that is something on which we should work.

Anybody who doubts the enormity of the poverty should look at the figures. In this country the per capita income is of the order of $6,000. The corresponding figure in Ethiopia is $120 per capita. I had a figure of somewhere around $200. If you look at the figure for the total calorie intake of these countries, they are at malnutrition levels; the levels of protein in their diet are appallingly poor. The amounts of animal protein which is available to them are disatrously low by comparison with our own country.

May I conclude by saying that we will be supporting the Fine Gael amendment. It is very important that, as a country, we seek to raise our contribution. We should do it on the basis of moral considerations. If those are not relevant to us, then we undoubtedly should do it on the basis of considerations that relate to self-interest.

Mr. Mooney

Like my colleagues, I welcome an opportunity to contribute to this important debate. I am heartened by the Minister's address. It makes positive reading but also it makes crisis reading — four million people threatened by starvation in Tigre after the crop failures, more than the population of the Republic of Ireland and nearly as many as in this island as a whole. The death toll could be higher than the 1984-85 famine, when one million people died. Such is the enormity of the crisis facing the people of Ethiopia.

I welcome the Government's response to the immediate problem facing the starving people in Ethiopia. In the present economic climate, our contribution, while not yet achieving the United Nations ceiling of .07 per cent of GNP, is a positive indication of our concern. I must take issue with those who believe that contributing more and more money will somehow solve the problem. I direct my remarks particularly at many young people here who are rightly idealistic and impatient that something should be done and done quickly. However, I believe many young people, as said in comments in the more radical media, believe the blame for the Ethiopian problem lies at the door of an uncaring and indifferent Government. I was disappointed that, following the pickets placed on this House recently, there was not a similar picket placed on the Soviet Embassy. The Soviets are central to the beginning of the end of the problem in Ethiopia. At the very least, they can make a positive contribution to easing the problems of transportation in that country.

The Minister referred to the central role of the Soviets in this area and it is to Ireland's political contribution that I wish to address my remarks in this debate. First, I should put on record the current political situation in Ethiopia. The Minister referred to the £50,000 allocated by the Irish Government to REST, the Relief Society of Tigre. I welcome this contribution to the one organisation capable of directly helping the Ethiopian people, specifically those in the Tigre province. This society works directly with self-elected village committees to determine who are most in need in each affected community. There is no waste, no corruption and gifts from the international community are accounted for and monitored by independent experts.

All this sounds ideal. The problem is, however, that REST is made up entirely of Tigren volunteers and operates exclusively in the rebel-controlled areas. Supplies for distribution by REST are taken by lorry not through Ethiopia but across the border from Sudan. I believe the problem will remain as long as the developed countries in the West and other aid organisations such as World Food Programme, who are the main provider of food aid in famines, insist that relief assistance must only be given through official government channels. The notion of sending food illegally across an international border, in this instance Sudan, sits uncomfortably with some western Governments. Therefore, the enlightened initiative of the Irish Government recently in contributing money to REST reflects well on this Administration and on Trócaire who alerted the Government to REST's role in Tigre.

According to last weekend's Sunday Correspondent lack of formal knowledge of REST's activities has relegated it to virtual obscurity. Also, this problem is compounded by the prejudice in some western countries which surprises me, that unless white people are on the scene to distribute food nothing really gets done. I find this, in an otherwise enlightened age, an astonishing revelation by the journalist of the Sunday Correspondent. I ask the Minister specifically to convey to the Government the increasing importance of REST as a food distribution agency and to impress upon our European partners the need to break through the bureaucracy and red tape or, as the Sunday Correspondent again puts it, to allow the constraints of diplomacy to take a back seat, surely an understatement, but carrying a powerful message. I believe this could be the most positive contribution that Ireland can make in the present crisis.

We assume the Presidency of the European Community in January for six months and Ireland will be centre stage with enormous influence among the member states. I have, increasingly, come to the conclusion that the solution to the problem in Ethiopia is a political one. This point of view was borne out by the comments of that fine Christian gentleman, John O'Shea of GOAL who last week urged the Government, amidst all of the brickbats being thrown at them, about their alleged lack of concern, to use their influence even more than their money. Penny Jenden, who is administrator of Bob Geldof's Band Aid Fund concurs with that view and she says that this time around in this famine crisis the real effort has to be political. She says that Band Aid is throwing itself wholeheartedly behind any pressure that can be exerted politically for some sort of safe passage agreement.

It is appalling to learn that under present conditions food can take up to three months to reach Ethiopia. This is an improvement on the last famine when some EC aid took up to nine months. Richard Miller of the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development last week gave an example of the difficulties. He said that food pledged last September in the United Kingdom had to be brought, first, not to Ethiopia or to Sudan but to Belgium and only arrived this week in Tigre province to help the poor people there, some three months later.

John Seaman of the Save the Children Fund said that the real delays are procedural, not mechanical. When an EC grain order goes out to tender there is the problem of equity within Europe. Each country has to be seen to be getting its turn so that it takes time, often up to a month, for those tenders to be sorted out and agreed on and then they spend more time finding a ship. In contrast, when the Save the Children Fund are buying grain they deal directly and they can get the food to Sudan in about three weeks.

Bilateral aid directly to Ethiopia can also work quickly. A sum of £2 million pledged last week by the British Overseas Development Minister is expected to buy new lorries but because Britain — and I assume the same applies to all EC countries — does not want to be seen to be undermining the sovereignity of the Ethiopian Government it is vague about the money's final destination. Certain funds are channelled through charities partly so they are not seen to be directly funding rebel relief and partly because such agencies already have aid programmes so the money is processed quickly.

At least 50,000 tonnes of wheat and maize for Ethiopia will be bought by the European Community within Europe which means shipping and import procedures may take up to three months. This is despite attempts as far back as 1986 to reform European Community food aid and encourage purchase through food aid agencies. If the Community bought grain in neighbouring Sudan, for example, rather than buying it within Europe the understanding is that the procedure of getting the food to Tigre and to the people most affected would be much faster.

As one delves further and further into the famine problems in Ethiopia and in the African Continent generally it becomes abundantly clear that no amount of money in the short term will solve the problem. Money, of course, is central but it is not the only essential. It is in that context that, once again, I reiterate that my main purpose in standing up in this House today is to convey as strongly as possible to the Minister to impress upon the Government in their deliberations with their EC partners, especially in the next six months of our Presidency, that we must get our act together as a Community, that we must get over the bureaucratic and red tape problems. Our role, as a small country within Europe, with enormous influence despite our size, should be directed towards convincing our EC partners of the need to get our act together in the administrative and procedural area rather than in spending money at this stage in the serious problems that have arisen in Ethiopia.

Mr. Norris

I give a qualified approval to this motion because it states fairly bluntly that Seanad Éireann approves of the allocations made by the Government for emergency famine relief and urges the Government to continue to assist the diplomatic efforts to ensure the supplies reach those in need. Of course, I endorse that but I can only give a qualified approval because it comes in a certain context. It comes in the context of swingeing cuts in overseas development aid announced in the Government's Estimates. This is very regrettable. Ireland is the 26th richest nation in the world. That puts us in the top quarter of all the countries in the globe and yet the proportion of GNP that that Government have allocated to the Third World has actually fallen from 0.25 per cent in 1986 to a mere 0.16 per cent this year. We have never, even in the period when our contribution was double that, come near achieving the target recommended by the United Nations of 0.7 per cent of GNP, which is a comparatively modest contribution. We are particularly sensitive in this matter because of our own tragic experience in the last century of the effects of famine.

It seems to me that an earlier speaker was incorrect when he spoke of schizophrenia in Government circles, in cutting back on aid in the immediate context of the Bob Geld of extravaganza. That was not schizophrenia at all; that was simple meanness and cheese-paring and it is something that happens on the national as well as the international scale. Anybody who is involved, as I have been over many years, in voluntary work knows that one of the dangers of voluntary work is that you relieve the pressure from Central Government and if government are sufficiently cheese-paring they will take account of this in making up their budget. I believe that this is precisely what has happened with regard to the very remarkable and characteristic generosity of the Irish people. The Government have carpet-bagged on this generosity and taken it into account when calculating the figures for overseas development aid. Of course, I have to deplore it.

Attention has been drawn very widely in the media to this situation and placed it in the context of the Ethiopian famine. The Irish Times on the 30 November had a leading article headlined “The Spectre of Ethiopia” which I feel the Minister would do well to read. However, in order to be truly independent and not to appear to be attacking the Government unreservedly, and in particular to pay a unique tribute from myself to the Minister for Foreign Affairs — because I have been critical of him in the past — it was an imaginative and appropriate gesture, and one to be welcomed, that the Minister for Foreign Affairs should have visited the Soviet Embassy to seek their assistance in allowing transport of food to make its way into the most settled parts of Ethiopia. I feel that the Minister has the determined support of the Oireachtas and of the Irish people in making this gesture. It was important, imaginative and it is to be welcomed.

I believe that the Soviet Government may well respond but we must be aware of the fact that President Gorbachev has a lot on his plate, not just Ethiopia, and that we are not quite as significant a player on the international stage as, perhaps, some of us would like us to be.

I would like also to point out that transport, although it is an important element, is not an insurmountable one. Here I have to disagree with what my distinguished colleague, Senator Mooney had to say about the dangers of throwing money at famines. I honestly do not believe that we are really throwing money at them. The amounts are really quite tiny compared with——

Mr. Mooney

I did not say that.

Mr. Norris

It is important that it be made clear that what Senator Mooney indicated was that young people were being misled by radical papers and radical sections of the media into believing that the problem could be solved by throwing money at it.

Mr. Mooney

Only.

Mr. Norris

Only. I would like to point out that money is a very important ingredient even in allowing transport through and I quote Fr. Aengus Finucane, who is with one of the principal relief agencies. He said only last week that if sufficient money was raised, aid can get through. It is a question of money. He said that the tragic thing is that the cost, however, is vastly higher than if it was not a war. Already about £100 could be added to the price of each tonne of food reaching people in areas controlled by the Ethiopian Government. That gives the key to part of what is going on. It is not only a humane problem, it is a problem with a very clear political element and that political element is a desire of the Ethiopian Government, among other elements in that part of the world, to reduce people to submission by starvation.

This is put in context even before the Mengistu regime came into power. Fintan O'Toole in a very powerful article in The Irish Times of 23 November, entitled “The Hungry Man thinks only of Bread”, tells how an official in the old Ethiopian Government of Emperor Haile Selassie explained this factor to a Polish journalist by saying:

How then to confront this threatening creature that man seems to be, that we all are, how to tame him and daunt him, how to know that beast, how to master him. There is only one way, my friend, by weakening him, yes, by depriving him of his vitality because without it, he will be incapable of wrong and to weaken is exactly what fasting does. A man starved all his life will never rebel. The usefulness of growing hungry is that a hungry man thinks only of bread.

It is a very sinister remark to make. Admittedly, it was made some years ago by a previous regime but this, I believe, is the thinking that still obtains in official circles in Ethiopia. Famine is being deliberately, cynically and unscrupulously used as an instrument of warfare by certain regimes in the Horn of Africa against their own people.

That imposes an obligation upon us, an obligation on us to increase our aid. I welcome the increases the Minister has indicated, tiny though they are — and they are tiny, £45,000 for a truck, £50,000 for something else. I wish to encourage the Minister to continue this process but it is not enough. I remember people saying when I was learning history that Queen Victoria sent £5 for the famine. We know that myth has been exploded but it put in context how we felt about English hard-heartedness and Victorian laissez faire economic theory and so on. At that time, Ireland, particularly the parts affected by famine, were three days journey from London. Nowadays, we see every single evening on television in our living-rooms the spectacle of fellow-citizens of this earth starving to death. The figure is 500 million children globally imperiled by starvation. It is, I believe, very much our responsibility.

I would like to refer to something the Minister said, for example, with regard to Sudan. He mentioned that 700,000 refugees from Sudan and Somalia sought refuge in Ethiopia. When the question of Sudan is raised, I have to point out that we can be quite cynical in our calculations too, and that Sudan is a country with which as a result of, among other things, our bilateral aid programme, we actually have a positive trade balance — about £6 million.

We need to look into these kind of situations where, on the one hand, we dole out our pennies to those whom we regard as the unfortunate but deserving poor, and, at the same time, the macroeconomic structure puts us in a situation where, without the understanding or consent of our citizens, we are actually, even through our aid programmes, conspiring to extract further moneys from the weaker section of our community.

I spoke on the NESC report about the dangers of distortions occuring globally as a result of the fact that in the European Community we were trying to rectify regional distortions of economy. We were trying to bring areas like Ireland and Portugal up to the standard of the other countries but in so doing, I suggested and I reaffirm that today, that we stand in great danger of exacerbating the North-South divide.

Mr. Lydon

In May 1989 I initiated a debate in the Seanad here on the motion.

That Seanad Éireann noting with concern, the obstacles facing the transportation and distribution of emergency food aid to the starving people of Ethiopia, appeals to all concerned to take the necessary action in order for food aid to be adequately distributed, and calls on the Government to use its good offices to effect a ceasefire between all the forces involved in the conflict in Ethiopia.

At that time, it received all-party support and I was pleased with the Minister's response. Now, we are here again, a year and a half later, and we are debating the same issue and what has changed. The Minister referred to the areas of Eritrea and Tigre and said:

In both of these areas, there are internal conflicts with the rebel movements opposing Government forces. These hamper delivery of relief supplies, particularly in Tigre, which is entirely in rebel hands. The main access roads into Tigre from the south and the south west are closed.

We all know that there are a number of problems in this area. One of the principal problems is the Government and the way they control the aid that is provided. I would like to quote here from a statement by the British Horn of Africa Council dated 25 February 1988, which was kindly forwarded to me by Mr. Louis Dillon Fitzgibbon, the secretary of the organisation. The statement reads:

The most serious cause of trouble, not just in Ethiopia, but in the whole area, is the concentration of Ethiopian resources on military and paramilitary expenditure. Ethiopia maintains, with some help from Cuba and the Soviet Union, the largest army in the African Continent, larger indeed than that of the two much richer countries, Nigeria and South Africa.

I also have a statement which shows that Russian Mig fighters, owned by the Ethiopian Government bombed civilians in Hasmet in northern Eritrea. This goes on all the time.

The Rev. Dr. Parkins, the Methodist Minister in Birr, County Offaly, spent two weeks in the affected areas in northern Ethiopia on behalf of the disaster joint appeal committee, which comprises Christian Aid, Trócaire, Gorta, The Church of Ireland Bishops' Appeal and the Irish Missionary's Union. In The Irish Times of 6 December he is reported as follows:

There will be a major crisis at the end of January, which is really only a matter of weeks, if the supplies are not there to avert the crisis.

Dr. Parkins said that people were dying of starvation. He also said:

Four million people would require food assistance in the coming 12 months until the next harvest in Tigre and Eritrea. A total of 600,000 tonnes of food was needed to prevent starvation on a major scale. He referred to this later when he said:

Food distribution has to be organised at night because of the bombing raids by the Ethiopian Air Force. The Ethiopian Government has withdrawn completely from Tigre.

What are we doing about this in Ireland or in the European Community? Last year, as I mentioned, under the Lomé Convention we gave 230 million ECUs to Ethiopia, and this huge handout of approximately US$300 million is based on what is said to be a reform of agricultural policies. I said at the time I was not opposed to giving aid but that it must be monitored because we all know that this is a Marxist Government which last year was in the process of getting a US$4 billion loan from the Soviet Union. Again, as one Senator said, Mr. Gorbachev probably has enough on his plate but he has, nevertheless, got a responsibility here as well if this Stalinist regime — and he is against Stalinism at the moment — is bombing and killing people who are starving. I am glad to see that the Minister for Foreign Affairs has made a request to the Soviet Union to intervene in this dispute.

I see, too, in an article in last week's Sunday Times by Peter Godwin and Andrew Grice, that the Soviet Union and America are trying to create a peace corridor through the war zones of Ethiopia to carry food to the four million people threatened by famine. I welcome that. It is about time they did something because it is only the major powers who can really intervene and do something with Mengistu.

I said before, and I say it again, that the 26 year old war to Ethiopia has claimed almost 500,000 lives and as long as it goes on the Ethiopian people will starve. They starve not only because of the recurring drought but also because they are victims of a war between Eritrean and Tigrean separatists and the Marxist Government in Addis Ababa. Some six million people are at risk at present. What of the future? According to the World Bank, population growth is outstripping food production at such a rate that by the year 2000 some 14 million people will be at risk and it is extremely doubtful that the world's relief agencies could cope with a problem of this magnitude. This need not happen. We, and the other member states of the Economic Community can, should and must put pressure on all those involved in the conflict to effect a ceasefire.

I welcome the provision of aid provided by the Government at the present time. I know they are providing what they can. I ask them to continue to increase it as funds become available, but I would insist that all aid be carefully monitored. Concerted pressure in the monitoring of aid by outside impartial agencies may be our most effective weapon in combating this appalling crisis.

Pressure seems to work. If anybody has any doubt about what is going on in those beleagured areas I have obtained a video produced by the Tigrean Front. I will make it available to any Senator, or indeed any Deputy, who wishes to see this. I would be glad to show it to them. Their appalling conditions are the result of a Marxist regime which is using aid to further its cause to try and gain control over the entire country. I appeal to the Minister to intervene at all possible levels, as our Minister for Foreign Affairs has done.

I welcome aid, as everybody does. I am sure we are doing what we can. I would ask them to increase it if possible, but I welcome what has been done at the present time. I ask the Government to keep up the pressure, to see that all aid that is provided is monitored carefully so that this man does not use any of the moneys provided, or indeed put his hand on any of the aids which should be going to the people who are dying and who are in need.

Mrs. Jackman

For procedural reasons we cannot table amendments but Fine Gael will be opposing the motion on the grounds that we do not consider that the funding is sufficient in the 1990 budget, although I welcome the increase the Minister has suggested will be given, £300,000 for emergency relief. Because of the restrictions of time I have to go very quickly through the many points I want to make. It is very sad that it took the reports of an impending disaster of the famine reaching the scale of the 1984-85 famine, which we know ravished Ethiopia, to cause us to look again at our commitment to the developing world in terms of aid, both relief aid, emergency aid as it is called, and development aid.

In 1988 we responded with other donor countries by providing funds and supplies to Ethiopia and averting a further major famine in that year. Did we learn a lesson from that catastrophe of 1984-85? We retained our position among the wealthier nations of the world despite our own economic problems in the 1980s but, again, I refer to our commitment. The United Nations target of 0.7 is a modest target in relation to our GNP and we have committed ourselves as a Government over the years to reaching that figure. Looking at our contribution over the past four years, and just a few weeks ago when the Government announced another real cut in ODA, obviously we are not reaching that or even making an effort. We are going far away from that promise of 0.7 per cent of GNP and the 500 million starving people of the world.

At this moment we are being given a very positive picture of the Irish economy. We are told our economic crisis is passing, so there is no real excuse for not going back to the 1986 figure when our ODA was £40 million compared to the £35 million in the 1990 Estimates. Since 1986 we have actually taken £22 million away from what we promised to developing countries. That is the reason we are voting against the motion. It is strange that we, as a nation, are top of the league for individual generosity but we are second last for what counts internationally as ODA.

I am aware — Senator Lydon pointed this out in his contribution — of the staggering problems that Ethiopia, Sudan and other east African countries face. Time will only allow me to briefly look at those problems in relation to Ethiopia. History has not been kind to that country. There has been a long history of famine right back to the 1800s. There was a famine in 1972-74, which is not so very long ago, when we should have been alerted to the problems of Ethiopia, when 200,000 people died. In Ireland, we still speak of the Irish famine and the effects can still be seen in this country. We should have learned some lessons from the famine in Ethiopia in 1972-74 to help that country to face its current problems. Of course, we must acknowledge the fact, as Senator Lydon said, that war is continuing to disrupt agriculture. There was the invasion of Ethiopia by Italy and Somalia — obviously again the influence of the past — and the continuation of the Eritrean-Tigrean war.

The facts regarding the cost of war in relation to Ethiopia are that $440 million is spent on the military — a staggering figure. In black Africa Ethiopia has the largest army, over 300,000 people, as well as a very expensive navy and air force. Ethiopia buys arms abroad in Europe, the Soviet Union and, in the past, in the United States, and the war has actually helped Ethiopia create a debt to foreigners of £3 billion — a staggering amount.

What is the result of this? Moneys for roads, communications, transport etc. are needed. How can you possibly have money for those items when you think in terms of what is spent in war? We can understand why supplies cannot get through when we consider the staggering cost of war. War causes grave disruption of agriculture.

With regard to poverty, it is important when we talk about our GNP and our average per capita income, to realise that US$110 is the average annual per capita, amount for Ethiopia. That is an average figure which means that of the 42 million people living in Ethiopia, some may not even reach that figure and they have to struggle even for their most basic needs. Obviously the Ethiopian Government have found it very hard to find money to pay for food and development. The price of goods they need to import continues to rise while export prices continue to fall. Poverty itself is another major cause of famine. If we had time, we could argue that the policies of the Ethiopian Marxist Government have also made the situation worse by promoting collective ownership of farms and state farms rather than individually owned farms.

We come to something that is very topical at the moment, the misuse of the earth's resources. When the Ethiopians were farming they were able to farm successfully. It was when they were interfered with by European farming techniques that things began to be difficult. The Ethiopians were well able to manage their affairs before colonialisation. What has been the result of this environmental crisis? It has brought about deforestation where trees are cut down to provide fuel. In 1880, over 100 years ago, 44 per cent of Ethiopian land was woodland. Today it is 4 per cent. This, of course, has repercussions for us when we talk about the need for oxygen and the destruction of rainforests and, of course, it means soil erosion for the Ethiopians.

I want to make one point which was not touched on: what we actually get in return for what we spend. It is not all giving; we get a tremendous amount back. Our exports, in 1980 amounted to £405 million. Our semi-State bodies alone earned 40 per cent more from service contracts in developing countries than the entire aid budget that year. It is very important that we emphasise that. Our money is spent, as we know, through multinational aid, through bilateral aid, and also I mention the fact that the ESB have helped Ethiopia to run its power stations but we have got funding back in return. Likewise with Aer Lingus.

It is a long-term problem and Senators in their contributions over the past few minutes have shown that it is an enormous problem. We must look towards education where we help our students to develop skills, knowledge and attitudes which will lead them to respond and to be critical in today's interdependent world, give them a global dimension and help them to develop attitudes creating tolerance, empathy, openness, appreciation of other cultures and basic human rights. Because of the enormity of the problem, we could not possibly accept that the funding for the 1990 budget is anything near what it should be in relation to helping dependent people.

Mr. B. Ryan

There are a couple of things that need to be said on this issue. The first is, who could oppose the wording of the motion? I am not arguing with Senator Jackman. Of course I agree with her. With regard to the wording of the motion, it is a bit like being asked to say you are in favour of sin. I do not blame the Minister for that. I blame that Minister perhaps more than he deserves to be blamed but he is not responsible for that. Of course we all agree, we are glad the Government gave something. It is a lot better than giving nothing. Nobody disputes that.

There is a tone to the discussion on Ethiopia that I have not heard often before, that is, the talk about all the outrageous things the Ethiopian Government have done. We would want to be very careful. Nobody has suggested for one second that Ethiopia is a democracy. There is no way in which we can delay, slow down or avoid taking the action that is necessary because of the outrageous things the Ethiopian Government have done. If we are going to give lectures, and I do not disagree with it, to the Soviet Union about what it should do with a dependent or client state in Africa, then I hope our Minister will take off shortly to the American Embassy to talk about the murder of nuns and priests in El Salvador. We need to be very careful not to decide that one super-power is somehow more open to our criticism than another super-power. The world has almost been destroyed by the competition of superpowers.

I hope that there is not even a hint of an implication that aid to Ethiopia should in any way be tied to political change in Ethiopia. I do not subscribe to that view where the aid can get through. There are voluntary organisations and, without being in the least bit nationalistic, it is to their great credit that there are Irish Sisters who are the people who stayed with the victims of famine when everybody else felt obliged to leave. Many people, including myself, who can be very critical of the Church and its institutions from time to time, mostly with justification, have a particular obligation to record the fact that it was Sisters, and it is Sisters, who stayed with these people and were the people who were able to provide the support to enable the world to be told about what had happened there.

It is not enough, of course, to talk about Ethiopia and to give famine relief.

It is extremely important that we should do so but there is an important difference between charity and justice. It is a distinction which is very well discussed in the Irish Bishop's pastoral letter on justice. The difference is that charity is what you give out of that which you are entitled to have but you can only give charity after you have given back that which you are not entitled to have. It needs to be said that western society has a share of the world's resources that it is not entitled to have and, therefore, it is not a question of some high-named charity that dictates we should increase our level of aid to Third World countries; it is a moral imperative of justice that dictates we should increase our overseas development aid.

It cannot be avoided that this Government and this Minister have presided over an extraordinary decline in our proportionate level of overseas development aid. Because of the structure of ODA this decline has disproportionately impinged on our bilateral aid because we have to maintain our multilateral commitments. That has caused and will continue to cause enormous disruption of what were extraordinarily useful programmes, programmes that I had the good fortune to see myself. Anybody who has seen the value of our overseas developments aid would have enormous difficulty in justifying the cutbacks.

If we are going to give lectures to the authorities in Ethiopia about expenditure on armaments, then I would like to know how we can justify the expenditure of £10 million in recent years to buy new rifles for an already well equipped army. To replace weapons that are acceptable to some countries in NATO by even more modern weapons at a cost of £10 million seems to me to tarnish slightly our capacity to give sanctimonious moral lectures about armaments. We would want to be a little careful.

There are three things involved in bringing justice to the world at present. There is trade, there is debt and there is aid. One of the problems we have imposed on the entirety of the Third World is an increasing need for them to have access to so-called hard currency. That has given added impetus to the ecological devastation that is the cause of so much drought and the attendant human consequences of famine and so on. Part of the reason for the demand for foreign currency is the overwhelming burden of debt. Let it be said, that debt is not something that is held by big banks in other countries. Our banks have a stake in Third World debt and when interest rates go up our banks get more money out of the Third World as part of their share of Third World lending. There can be no justice in that situation where the western world is getting back more in interest payments from the Third World then its total aid contribution. That is not justice; that is robbery and that is usury.

The third thing is aid and that is where we are most shamefully betraying our own people. OECD figures will show that in terms of charitable voluntary donations the Irish people contribute a greater proportion of their GNP to overseas development than any other OECD country. Our people in their spontaneous voluntary donations are more generous than any others. Our Government by contrast with the will, the wish and the generosity of its people are mean-minded, penny-pinching and miserly. It is time the Government reflected the clear will of the people as demonstrated by their spontaneous giving out of their own pockets. Let it be said, that aid given by Irish people not by choosing to give to Third World charities instead of to charities at home, our people give generously both at home and abroad. They are prepared to see that continue. The Government should not say there is a consensus to justify their decisions. They should recognise that the consensus out there is to say that this is one area where they had to mandate to cut, where they have no mandate to cut and where they never will have a mandate to cut.

If our Government are to have the credibility they ought to have to direct the EC over the next six months into areas of new thinking, to get the EC away from the increasing introspection that seems to have taken it over, then one of the things they need to do is to reassess their whole view of overseas development aid. Even if it means a specific imposition of a specific tax, they should return to the path of morality by a process of bringing our overseas development aid up to the minimum moral value, which is, 0.7 per cent of our gross national product. Even if that means imposition of specific taxes, then it should be begun in the January budget. I appeal to the Minister either to get that done or to do the thing which establishes credibility most with ordinary people, that is, to resign and not to allow the charade to continue.

Mr. Ross

I am sometimes worried about myself when I consistently agree with what Senator Brendan Ryan says in his speeches. I feel I ought to re-examine exactly what I have written down and my thoughts on the subject.

Mr. B. Ryan

The feeling is entirely mutual.

Mr. Ross

It would be even more worrying for Senator Ryan when I say I endorse every single thing he said in his speech. It seems to me that this debate is about priorities and where our contribution to world development aid ranks in the priorities of the Government. From all the figures I have seen, from all I have heard here today and from the Minister's opening statement, it seems it ranks very low in priority. I wonder why the Government have not seen fit to set up again the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Development Co-operation. The Government have seen fit to set up committees on all sorts of other things, joint committees of both Houses, which would seem to those of us who have contributed to this debate to be less important than a joint committee on development co-operation. But apparently, and it is symbolic of the importance which the Government attach to this subject, they have decided that development co-operation for Third World and overseas countries does not merit the sort of attention which internal matters do in this session of the Dáil and Seanad.

I accept it is easy for those of us on the Opposition always to complain that enough money is not given to X, Y or Z but it is very difficult for us to propose where that money will come from. I would have thought there is a very good case for saying that so critical is the situation in the Third World at the moment, so critical is the situation in Ethiopia and Sudan and in many other countries, that maybe all the money which we raise from the national lottery should go direct and immediately to ODA or in a bilateral sense straight to the Third World, to overseas countries. I do not see why money should be raised for dubious schemes in particular constituencies in this country when other people are starving in Ethiopia and in Sudan. I do not know exactly how much is being raised by the national lottery but I imagine there must be about £40 million per annum for distribution at this stage by the Government. If I am wildly out, the Minister will correct me. That would be an enormous contribution to the Third World and would put us up into disproportionate generosity whereas the sacrifice which we would have to make at home would be to sacrifice what are in the main, and are certainly in Third World terms, luxuries to the individuals and the groups involved.

It is not right for us to adopt a high moral tone on this issue here because it is not particularly convincing. Between the balance of building golf courses and seeing people starve, there is absolutely no question of which should be a priority. I ask the Minister to consider the proposal that the whole of national lottery funds should go to the starving people of Ethiopia and other underdeveloped countries.

I wish to endorse what Senator Ryan said so eloquently, that we are, indeed, a very generous people in terms of spontaneity and individual contributions to the Third World. Yet, the Government seem unable to reflect the wishes of the people who have given so much money, as was so amply illustrated after the Live Aid Concert.

It is no harm to read into the record the Irish contribution in 1987 to the ODA total as a percentage of GNP, compared with our EC and European partners. Norway gave 1.09 per cent, Holland, 0.98 per cent, Denmark, 0.88 per cent, Sweden, 0.88 per cent, France, 0.51 per cent, Finland, 0.50 per cent, Belgium, 0.49 per cent, Germany, 0.39 per cent, Italy, 0.35 per cent, Britain, 0.28 per cent and Ireland 0.20 per cent. We were bottom of the league in that year for reasons which cannot be explained.

I am not going to raise this particular hare today, but the Minister raised the matter of the EC in his speech. When we get this apparently great prize of the EC Presidency in January, it will be very difficult for us to give a lead in aid to the Third World as President of the EC in that period if we are bottom of the league in that area. In fact, in the 1990 Estimates we are giving even less than 0.2 per cent in ODA. I would ask the Minister to consider it in the European context which he has brought out himself in his speech and to tell us how we can give a lead to our European colleagues during that six months if our own performance is so abysmal.

I do not accept the congratulatory sort of tone in this motion. Our contributions are dismal. Neither do I accept the half-excuses given by the Government side about the sort of regimes that exist in the Third World, and in Ethiopia in particular. It is absolutely irrelevant whether the régime is a Stalinst, dictorial, Marxist one or whether it is a particularly tyrannical one of the right. What matters is that the people there are starving and that we have an obligation as members of the human race to help them.

I accept the excuses which are given by the Government side and by those administering these funds that it is difficult sometimes to deliver the food because of the particular civil war problem which exists there. It is an absurd excuse to attack the regime and to say because it is a Marxist régime who have committed appalling atrocities, who are tyrannical, we should not give them any more money or any more food. The people in those countries who are dictated to in this way, do not have much choice about the régimes who govern them.

Finally, I should like the Minister to tell us what are the plans of the Government for overseas aid and for ODA in the future. In his final paragraph, he says, "I wish to make clear that I do not wish to minimise the present situation. It is very serious and potentially catastrophic". To my mind it is already catastrophic. It has gone beyond a serious stage. Then he says: "I believe that if it is taken very seriously by everyone at this stage results can be achieved much more quickly".

That is saying absolutely nothing. It is declaring no intent. It is saying that the Minister has no plans for the next five or six years for ODA except to take it very, very seriously. As a first priority, I suggest that he should say that instead of being bottom of the league coming into the EC Presidency which we are now, Ireland will take the lead and will give a substantial proportion of national lottery funds to the ODA, so that we can take some sort of moral stance on this. Otherwise, we will be talking in a vacuum, speaking to our partners in the EC without any credibility whatsoever and will have the worst record to lead with.

Mr. Manning

I want to make a very brief contribution this morning to clarify a point I made on the Order of Business when I indicated that we would be opposing this motion today. I said that at the time because it had been, I believe, the intention of all parties in the House that motions like this coming in on Thursdays, which, we hope will be a regular feature of the life of the Seanad, would have allparty agreement before they come in. Certainly, from our point of view, we would liked to have seen a motion which conveyed a much greater sense of urgency about the situation and which might have reflected a willingness to make a greater contribution, not just to Ethopia but to the whole question of overseas development aid. However, I accept fully the bona fides of the Leader of the House in this matter, that as matters transpired there was not time to consult or to get an agreed motion. I will not be pressing this motion to a vote today although I would like to put on record — and it has been done by Senator Jackman, Senator Raftery and other Senators — our sense that the motion does not convey the full sense of urgency or of scale which all Members and all parties in the House have in regard to this subject.

I would like to refer very briefly to two matters of substance which have been raised in what has been a very wide-ranging and useful debate. It is important at the outset to make the point that no party or group in this House have a monopoly of compassion on this issue. As a people we all have a sense of concern and have shown our generosity in the past in various ways in the scale and extent of charities and the extent to which the work of the various relief agencies has penetrated the consciences especially of the young people throughout our society.

There are two specific points I would like to make. Strange as it may seem to him that I am actually supporting him in the matter I would like to support Senator Ross's plea on the question of the national lottery. The national lottery has come into existence and has been a success. There are side effects and down effects which may well be deleterious but that is a matter to be seen. If the Irish people were ballotted or surveyed on the question of whether they would be prepared to see a much greater amount of national lottery money over a fixed period go to development aid, famine relief and so forth, I suspect the answer would be a strong affirmation of a worked out, thought out proposal of this sort. I would certainly like to support the case made by Senator Ross on this matter.

A second point relates to tax relief for institutions and individuals who contribute towards famine relief. It is my understanding that donations by individuals or institutions to charitable causes — and these can be university development, hospitals, hospices and so forth — enjoy a very favourable tax relief, that the amount of tax relief for the donor can be considerable and the person in receipt also benefits. I would like to ask the Minister to raise this question with the Gover-ment and the Department of Finance to see if some type of tax exemption could be conferred on donations to famine relief and so forth. Obviously, the Minister cannot answer that today but perhaps at some later stage he might come back on that point.

This has been a very useful debate and, as I said at the outset, we will not be pressing this matter to a division.

Minister for State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (Mr. Calleary)

First, may I thank all the Senators who contributed to the debate and to assure them that I have taken on board quite a number of the things that have been suggested. It has been a strange morning as has been suggested: Senator Manning, Senator Ryan and Senator Ross are in agreement. Christmas must be in the air.

Mr. Manning

All you want now is Senator Lanigan.

Mr. Calleary

Could I assure Senator Ryan that I have no intention of resigning? I have a job to do and I will try to do it to the best of my ability. That would be the easy way out and as somebody who has come from Mayo, we do not generally take the easy way out. I will certainly come back to the point raised by Senator Manning. Unfortunately I cannot give him any answer now but I certainly will return to him with the answer.

I am afraid I cannot give Senator Ross any idea why the committee have not been reformed. However, I understand that there was some difficulty here yesterday morning about committees and I would hate to have more problems in the Seanad by adding more committees.

Senator Ryan and, indeed other Senators, raised the difficulty in providing humanitarian aid and the fear was expressed that humanitarian aid is only being provided to certain régimes. I can reassure Senator Ryan that Irish humanitarian aid is provided without any political or other conditions whatsoever attached. It is a point that was also raised by Senator Ross. I can assure him that we have always supported that position in both the Community and the United Nations fora.

I had the opportunity of having a very long conversation with Fr. Jack Finucane of Concern who has just returned from Ethiopia. It might be of interest to the Seanad, particularly in view of all that has been said, that one of Fr. Finucane's observations in a very detailed report which he made to Concern which he made available to me and which I would like to thank him for publicly is that in the last two months up to 1,500 advisers from Russia and East Germany have left, including the Russian military attaché; and that in recent weeks Ethiopia has resumed diplomatic relations with Israel. Maybe there is something there. As far as we are concerned, the Minister as referred to by Senator Norris, did ask the Russian Ambassador to use whatever influence he could and I accept that all that the Russians can do is to use whatever influence they can to make certain that the roads are open. That is the only way we can get food into the areas where there is the most need. Certainly, all the other routes are being used by the various NGOs to the best of their ability. The reality is that unless we can get the roads open, particularly the ones from the north and the south a number of people will not be able to get the amount of food that is needed.

Senator Raftery spoke about the work of the International Livestock Commission for Africa. He also noted that it was headed by an Irishman, Dr. John Walsh. What he did not say, and what I am very pleased to tell the Seanad, is that the bilateral aid programme of which so much has been said this morning is providing £200,000 a year towards the work of this institution which we, like him, believe is very important in finding long term solutions to the problem of food supply in Africa.

Senator Mooney spoke about the operation of agencies such as REST and how important it is that aid be given to such agencies. I would like to reassure Senator Mooney that efforts are being made by us, and indeed by all official sources, to ensure the supplies get through. We will use whatever agencies we can to make certain that supplies get through. Senator Ross and Senator Ryan picked up that point later and again, I would like to reassure them that there are people in Government-held areas who are certainly in as much need as those in Tigre. It is important that relations are maintained with the Government in Ethiopia, who, whether we like it or not, are a legitimate Government.

I would like to inform the Seanad that today, the European Community, which is represented by Spain, Italy and France is making three points to the Ethiopian Government in Addis Ababa. First, they are notifying the Government that the Community is very worried about the food situation. Second, they are informing the Government of the anxiety of a number of states to help the people of Ethiopia. Third, they are requesting them to allow access for humanitarian aid in all regions. The co-ordination of aid can be carried out and organised under the aegis of the United Nations which, after all, has the capacity to arrange access, if this is agreed.

I am glad that the motion will not be put to a vote. If I had known that the discussion would take the direction it did on the amount of aid being provided, I could have come in with a completely different speech. I can assure the House that the Government will continue to provide as much aid as they possibly can in the circumstances. I accept that the percentage contribution has declined. However, it is important to say that the amount of money has gone up in the past two years. As the Taoiseach said recently in reply to questions in the Dáil: we have an enormous burden of debt ourselves, a debt of £25 billion.

I can accept what the Senators are saying but I am quite positive that the vast majority of Senators here have been in touch with various Ministers looking for various things for their constituencies. Not only that, but each Deputy has been in touch with various Ministers. All of them have been refused. While I accept Senator Ryan's suggestion that an extra tax should be levied, if it were put to the Irish people, maybe their response would not be as forthright as Senator Ryan seems to think it would be.

Mr. B. Ryan

You can trust the people.

Mr. Calleary

I can also assure Senator Ross that if he made a suggestion, and I accept he made it in good faith, that all of the national lottery money should go to overseas aid development, he would be surprised by the outcry that might cause. That is being political. Those of us who are contacted every day by organisations that are looking for funds from the national lottery know how hard it is to get them. A suggestion like that would not be well received at all. The national lottery was set up under an Act of the Oireachtas and that Act would have to be changed to allow that suggestion to be taken up. I accept it is a positive suggestion and I welcome it. I am not saying that I agree with it, but I welcome it.

Mr. Manning

That sounds like what the Minister would say.

Mr. Calleary

I would like, again, to thank all the Senators. I would like to reassure them that contrary to what Senator Ross has said, the Government are doing everything possible. There is no way we can plan for six or seven years ahead. I do not think it is possible. There will always be arguments about aid: some people say there is not enough, while others say there is too much. I assure Senators that it has been put to me very, very strongly by a number of people that we are actually giving too much aid. I do not agree with that point, but there is a feeling abroad that in the present circumstances, we are contributing too much. As I said, I do not agree with that, neither do the Government who still remain committed to achieving the 0.7 per cent target as soon as economic circumstances permit it.

Mr. Lanigan

I wish to thank the Minister for his attendance here this morning and for his very comprehensive reply to the debate. The Minister has come here on a number of occasions since the election of this Seanad and has always addressed the issues honestly, openly, and I sincerely hope that will continue. He has displayed an openness of approach that was not always evident in the past and I would like to compliment him on that.

Question put and declared carried.