Déirdre de Búrca (Green Party)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and thank him for his contribution. Few in this House would disagree that Ireland's development aid programme is among the best in the world. That is not to say, however, there is no room for improvement. Politicians have been able to resource the aid programme so well because of the strong support that exists among the public for it. Irish people have always had strong sympathy for the plight of those in the developing world.

The causes for the systemic poverty experienced in the developing world are interwoven and require cross-sectoral intervention programmes in the areas of health, education, agriculture, food security, water and sanitation, infrastructure and roads, trade and the broader area of good governance. The commitments made in the programme for Government will help to address many of these issues. The overseas development aid budget will have been increased to 0.7% of gross national product by 2012 and a commitment has been made that the annual budget statement will contain an outline of the target for the coming year and a report on progress to date. That is a welcome development which will increase transparency on the question of whether we are approaching the target.

We have also agreed in the programme for Government to spend at least €100 million per annum on combatting HIV-AIDS and other communicable diseases in the developing world. AIDS is devastating the continent of Africa where an entire generation has been practically wiped out, and resources must be concentrated on combatting this disease.

Irish Aid information and volunteering centres will be established in Cork and Galway, in addition to the existing centre in Dublin. It was agreed that funding mechanisms for non-governmental organisations would be accessible and simplified. It was also agreed, as recommended in the White Paper on Irish Aid in 2006, that action on the findings of the hunger task force would be prioritised.

The programme for Government has agreed to support the fight against corruption. Some speakers mentioned that the Minister of State did not refer to corruption in his contribution. It is, however, definitely in the programme for Government that our aid programme will support the fight against corruption in developing countries by supporting institutions, NGOs and civil society to promote good governance and strive to ensure our development assistance continues to reach the poor. The programme for Government also makes a commitment to ensure that the sourcing of fair trade goods will, where possible, be part of all Departments' purchasing and spending programmes.

I wish to touch on a couple of issues relating to our development aid programme, some of which were raised by other speakers. One issue is climate change. I ask the Minister of State to ensure all our development aid programme is proofed in regard to climate change. The developed world is becoming more aware that the developing world is experiencing the most marked and incontrovertible effects of the phenomenon of climate change due to raising sea levels and flooding. We have also seen food shortages. The emphasis on growing crops for bio-fuels has altered the international grain market which can be implicated in the creation of very serious food shortages in developing countries.

The EU reform treaty proposes the establishment of an EU-wide humanitarian aid corps which will very much see its responsibility as intervening in parts of the developing world where droughts, floods and food shortages occur. My colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, is very keen to see us set up a world class carbon off-setting programme and to ensure the money we pay to off-set our carbon emissions is directed to supporting innovative and poverty reduction projects in the developing world.

The issue of corruption was mentioned. There are steps we can take. We must proof our development aid budget and programme against corruption. Nine of the developing countries to which we direct much of our development aid have among the lowest scores on an international corruption index. Some of the measures we can take were mentioned by other speakers. We can ratify the UN Convention against Corruption. Signing up to that framework would be a very visible and definite statement Ireland could make. We can also improve the financial management systems we require to be put in place in countries receiving our development aid. We can work through governments where we can but where there are serious concerns and evidence that there is endemic corruption, we can work through other structures such as churches, private individuals such as Niall Mellon and his trust, and NGOs. We can increase our support to civil society organisations in developing countries because they work at a grassroots level and in a bottom up way to tackle the culture of corruption which is so endemic in some of these countries.

I wish to touch on the issue of trade. As other speakers mentioned, we must ensure that what we give with one hand in our aid budget, we do not take away with the other hand with unfair trade rules and trade regimes to which we sign up. Much of the negotiation in terms of international trade rules from which Ireland and other developed countries benefit are agreed within the World Trade Organisation. Ireland is represented at it and much of the negotiation is done by the EU Commission on behalf of the member states, Ireland being one. We must ensure the trade rules agreed are fair to developing countries. There has been a lack of balance and many of the trade rules have been rigged in favour of the developed world and rich countries which already have very established markets.

I highlight, in particular, the European partnership agreements about which many of the development NGOs in Ireland have been shouting loudly and lobbying. I am sure the Minister of State has been lobbied on this issue. These are agreements that have been reached with many developing countries which ensure quick and what developing countries call "unfair market access" by developed countries to the markets in developing countries. They ensure developing countries cannot protect themselves by keeping perhaps local employment conditions or landownership conditions in place. We need to be very careful we do not preach the importance of helping, developing and extending aid to developing countries while allowing the European Commission to negotiate, on our behalf, programmes like this and trade agreements with developing world countries which are in a weaker negotiating position and which will, ultimately, not be in their interests and which will promote our own market interests and those of the European Union generally.