Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach and my colleagues in the Seanad for this opportunity to present the work of the Irish Aid programme to the House and to set the context for it. As Senators are aware, the scale of global development challenges today are such that we need a truly international response if we are to improve the lives of the world's poorest people. A key step was taken by the United Nations General Assembly when it adopted the Millennium Declaration in 2000. The declaration sets out the millennium development goals which include halving extreme poverty, halting the spread of HIV-AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by 2015. Ireland, along with other donor countries, has committed to doing its part to meet these goals. We are now the sixth largest donor in the world in per capita terms and we remain on target to allocate 0.7% of gross national income to development assistance by 2012. This year, our total spending on development assistance is on track to reach €815 million. The central objective of our programme is to tackle poverty and marginalisation in the poorest countries in the world. For this reason we will continue to focus our efforts on sub-Saharan Africa.

The millennium development goals, or MDGs as they are commonly known, succeeded in renewing the commitment of the international community to development. However, we are half way to the 2015 target date and it is not clear at this stage that all the goals will be met. Only 13 out of 53 African countries, for example, are on course to cut absolute poverty by half by 2015. An estimated 980 million people worldwide still live in abject poverty. Half the developing world has no access to basic sanitation and half a million women still die during pregnancy or childbirth each year. This is clearly an affront to our common humanity and it calls for further concerted international action.

Ireland supports the proposal by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to request the Secretary General of the United Nations to convene a meeting in September next year to discuss progress on implementation of the MDGs. The Taoiseach has asked me to champion the goals and I intend to do so proactively. Increasing the level of global resources allocated to development is obviously key. The White Paper on Irish Aid published last year put the case succinctly. We have a moral obligation to help those who are most vulnerable and marginalised and it is also in our interest to do so. Economic progress, peace and security are shared challenges in our increasingly inter-dependent world. The expansion of the Irish Aid programme in recent years has allowed us to play our part by directing more resources to areas that have the greatest impact on poverty, including health and education.

I will now outline a few concrete examples of the impact of this support. The majority of people suffering from HIV and AIDS are in developing countries and the toll of the disease is highest on the poor and those least able to cope. Irish Aid now spends €100 million each year on prevention strategies and better access to treatment for this and other communicable diseases. This follows a commitment given by the Taoiseach to the United Nations General Assembly in 2005. I saw the results for myself during a recent visit to Mozambique where home-based care has considerably improved the life expectancy and quality of life of thousands of people. By the end of last year our partnership with the Clinton Foundation in Mozambique had enabled more than 44,000 people suffering from AIDS to be treated in 150 health centres.

Education is also central to the fight against poverty. As we are well aware in Ireland, investment in education drives economic development. Education is also an important means of promoting health, good governance and protecting the environment. The focus of Irish Aid is on primary education, where the needs are greatest. In Ethiopia, for example, Irish Aid has supported the training of 30,000 primary school teachers and the construction of 145 primary schools last year. Enrolment in primary schools in Lesotho has increased from 57% in 1990 to over 80% today, again with Irish Aid assistance. I cite these examples to give Senators an idea of how Irish Aid funding is making a tangible difference to the lives of some of the world's poorest people.

Needless to say, Irish Aid cannot realise its objectives on its own. We continue to work very closely, as we have always done, with non-governmental and missionary organisations. Our missionaries have a long-established and unique track record of working with the poorest of the poor. NGOs are often best placed to respond quickly and appropriately to sudden emergencies. Our support to this area reached more than €100 million last year and we provided more than €140 million to longer-term work by these organisations. The horn of Africa has been a particular focus of our support of late and Irish Aid has also been active in responding to the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Darfur.

The United Nations and European Union tackle poverty at a global level. They need and deserve the ongoing support of donor countries. These organisations have a key leadership role in ensuring that aid efforts are not duplicated. Ireland has increased the level of assistance channelled through United Nations programmes in recent years and we are working to put framework agreements in place with UNICEF, the UNDP, the UNFPA and the UNHCR. The European Union is the largest development assistance donor in the world. Member states and the European Commission together provided almost €50 billion to more than 150 countries and territories in 2006, representing more than half of global development assistance.

Through the European Development Fund, Ireland is expected to contribute €206 million approximately between 2008 and 2013. Accountability and effectiveness are important considerations and we will continue to be at the forefront of the UN reform agenda and promote aid effectiveness in the European Union context.

Our bilateral programme and work with international partners is guided by the White Paper on Irish Aid published last year. The White Paper reiterated our core principles, including partnership with recipient countries. It committed Irish Aid to increase its partner countries from eight to ten. The decision to make Malawi our ninth partner country this year will allow us to strengthen further the poverty and Africa focus of our programme.

The White Paper announced a number of initiatives to build on Ireland's particular strengths. Our experience in improving agricultural productivity and the priority we attach to food security issues mean we are well placed to provide leadership in this area. With this in mind, a hunger task force of international experts, chaired by the former Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mr. Joe Walsh, was established this year. The task force is expected to report by the middle of next year and make concrete recommendations which will contribute to wider efforts to halve world hunger and poverty by 2015.

We have also been building our capacity to respond in a more cohesive way during sudden emergencies. As promised in the White Paper, a rapid response initiative was launched recently to draw on public and private sector expertise and make a real difference in these situations. It will allow essential supplies to be pre-positioned in forward bases in Europe and Africa. A rapid response corps with a select number of Irish experts is now available to be deployed at short notice to assist our partner agencies. This is backed up with advance funding for key partners such as the UN, the International Red Cross and non-governmental organisations to allow them the flexibility to scale up their response capabilities.

The Irish public has traditionally offered tremendous support for missionary and lay work in developing countries and we need to build a greater sense of ownership of our national aid programme as it expands in the coming years. We also have an opportunity to build on a growing willingness of people to get personally engaged. An Irish Aid volunteering and public information centre will open in O'Connell Street, Dublin, early next year to capture this interest. The centre will be a resource for those who want to know more about volunteering and for schools and other groups that wish to learn about global development challenges, the role of Ireland in responding and the difference individuals can make.

It is important also that there is coherence across Government on development issues. The White Paper contained a commitment to establish an interdepartmental committee on development to strengthen coherence in the Government's approach and endeavour to make best use of the expertise and skills available across the public service. I recently chaired the second meeting of the committee and I am bringing the group together again at the end of this month. It has already contributed to a greater sense of common understanding and purpose among its members.

We will need collective efforts at the individual, local, national and international levels if we are to respond effectively to the challenges I have outlined. Ireland is on track to honour its commitment to the millennium development goals but there is no sense of complacency. Irish Aid will continue to build on its international reputation for the quality of its programme. We will work effectively and innovatively to respond to the needs of the world's poorest people through our bilateral programme and co-operation with multilateral institutions, NGOs, global partnerships and other donors. The scale and variety of the challenges mean that the responses are by definition complex. However, keeping the ultimate aim of the programme in mind imposes a useful discipline. This is to empower the world's poorest and most marginalised people to lift themselves out of poverty. I look forward to working with the Seanad to help realise this ambition.