Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I offer the Tánaiste my best wishes for the next six months which will be a busy time. In consideration of that, I will ask only one question on the millennium development goals. The next six months will be critical in developing a framework for the period after 2015. There is a need to prioritise MDG 3 and MDG 4, relating to gender equality and empowering women, and child mortality. I understand the Tánaiste is planning a conference in April on hunger, nutrition and climate change. Those are sustainability issues and such issues cannot be extracted from population issues. We should prioritise family planning for the poorest women in the world. It tends to be forgotten and regarded as something nice to do as soon as we have solved world hunger. However, we will never solve world hunger if we do not deal with the population issues and give women some control over their fertility so that they can plan their families and space them in a way that is consistent with their ability to feed their children. The reality is that it underpins the achievement of every other goal. Healthy women mean healthy families. Healthy families mean productive families. Productive families mean productive societies, which is what we want to achieve. I note the Tánaiste is having an informal meeting in Dublin with the High Representative next month. That may represent an opportunity to get across the importance we attach to family planning and those millennium development goals. They should be an important part of targets within the new framework.