12 May 2004
Dr. Henry: I welcome the Minister of State and I agree with Senator Lydon. It is great to see the Minister of State, Deputy Tom Kitt, attacking his brief with such enthusiasm and I was very interested in his comprehensive speech.
I am glad the EU is on track with its commitments to developing countries and I agree with Senator Lydon that we must concentrate on certain countries. I share his interest in the African countries, which are our priority. However, as Senator Bradford said, I hope the Minister for Finance also knows of our commitment to providing 0.7% of our GDP in aid by 2007. Whenever I have met Africans, in Africa and elsewhere, there is constant praise for what we are about to do and it would be terrible if people were disappointed. I hope at Government meetings the Minister for Finance is well briefed on this, as we will have to put on a bit of a spurt to make that level of contribution by 2007.
Poverty reduction is incredibly important, as the Minister of State said, and it is good that the position of cotton producers in Africa is being tackled by the EU. However, we do not produce much cotton. I was not encouraged by the response of Irish farmers to Commissioner Fischler's announcement that aid to farmers in the EU would have to be examined seriously and that we would have to be ready to compete properly on the world stage. For example, there is an outrageous situation with sugar. If sugar was marketed as it should be, we would be able to buy it for 6 cent a kilogram here, rather than 25 cent a kilogram. We have advantages in that we are subsidising goods like sugar and beef to an enormous extent. I know we have a problem in that the US is paying subsidies to farmers but perhaps the EU could lead the way on this issue. It is fine to encourage improvements in global trade for commodities but one would like to feel we were not just doing so with commodities which do not affect the EU.
I am glad donor co-operation is improving and I saw that for myself in Ethiopia. We do not have to stand behind the national flag as we are very good at co-operating with other small countries on projects. I am also glad that dialogue with our partners is becoming more important. They have some very good ideas at times about how money should be spent and which programmes should be promoted.
The impact of AIDS in Africa is appalling. Deputy Burton told me that when she made a private visit recently to parts of South Africa and Tanzania where she worked in the 1980s she was horrified to see a huge increase in the number of families headed by children, as even their aunts, uncles and grandparents were dead. The social effects of that are absolutely dreadful.
It is important to remember that the most important cause of poverty in Africa is still conflict. When we see what is happening in the Sudan, northern Uganda and many other places, efforts to resolve conflict in those areas must be redoubled. I find I have to listen to the BBC World Service to find out what our troops are doing with the UN and I hear the highest praise for them. The Minister of State said we must be careful about what is happening on the edges of Europe. The other night I heard the BBC World Service describe 100 Irish peacekeepers holding the line with some very reluctant support from another country which I will not name. The praise for those 100 men was incredible but I heard little about them here. We hear nothing about what our soldiers have done in Liberia, which has been nothing short of unbelievable. They had to take on heavily armed child soldiers who were high on drugs and influenced by voodoo. Those conflicts cause more poverty than many other issues on which we concentrate.
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