Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

Ireland is recognised internationally for its contribution to the fight against global poverty and hunger and leading role in making international aid more effective. The State has played a strong role in the development of a consensus on the issue of debt cancellation for the least developed countries. All of our aid is provided in the form of grants, not loans. We have contributed our full financial share of more than €116 million to the two main multilateral initiatives to address debt relief. We have also worked with partners in our programme countries to ensure the additional money in debt relief is spent on programmes that benefit the poor.

The Government's debt policy strategy was prepared jointly by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Department of Finance and launched in 2002. It supports the total cancellation of the debts of the world's poorest countries. The policy has not changed. In our ongoing review of policy we are surveying the changes in the global situation and the impact to date of debt relief efforts. This work will feed into the current review of the White Paper which I hope to conclude by the autumn.

Debt relief for developing countries and loans from the international financial institutions are often conditional on the implementation of certain macro-economic and development policies. We take the view that all development interventions, including those of the international financial institutions, should be framed explicitly in the context of country ownership, poverty reduction and the achievement of the millennium development goals.

I welcome the ongoing process of reform within the World Bank and the IMF to ensure they can adequately meet the development challenges of a changing world. Ireland has supported the governance reforms of the past two years and the shifts in quotas and voting power in favour of developing and transition countries which have served to increase the legitimacy and democratic representation of the international financial institutions.

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