Dr. Vincent O'Neill:

I thank the Vice Chairman and members of the committee for giving us the opportunity to discuss the important issue of the international development framework post-2015, as well as the pertinent issue of how it will be financed, focusing specifically on the Council's conclusions and the European Commission's communication on financing poverty eradication and sustainable development. I will outline the primary United Nations-led processes which are driving the international discussions, how the European Union is engaging with this process and, specifically, the role Ireland has been playing, most notably, during its Presidency of the Union in the first half of 2013 and, laterally, in its engagement at the United Nations. I will also address the key issue of financing and the Commission's communication which is the first step in elaborating on an EU position on the financing issue relating to the post-2015 goals.

The deadline for the achievement of the millennium development goals, MDGs, is 2015. Although much progress has been made, there are still areas where poverty remains far too high and key MDG targets have not been reached. The international community is now increasing its attention on what should succeed the MDGs after 2015. At a specially convened UN summit in New York in 2010, the UN Secretary General was mandated to take the lead in considering and making proposals about the post-2015 framework. In 2012, at the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development hosted by Brazil, there was agreement to develop a set of sustainable development goals and to establish an open working group which would make proposals to the international community about how the UN could develop these goals.

The post-2015 development framework refers to the process to establish a new set of goals to succeed the MDGs and to integrate this with the processes and work of the open working group in proposing sustainable development goals.

There are a few elements of the UN leadership of this process that I would like to highlight. The UN Secretary General appointed a high-level panel of eminent persons, co-chaired by President of Liberia, the UK Prime Minister and the President of Indonesia, to lead international consultations on proposals for a successor post-2015 framework. Over the past 18 months, there have been many global discussions about this, including engagement with more than 5,000 civil society groups and engagements with parliamentarians, members of the private sector and so on to solicit their views.

Secondly, the open working group on sustainable development goals, which was constituted after the Rio+20 conference, is in discussion at the moment and the intention is that it will submit a report to the UN General Assembly by September 2014. Related to the work of the this group is an expert committee on sustainable development finance, which is looking more specifically at sustainable development financing. Again, this committee will report to the UN General Assembly by September 2014.

Over the past two years, the UN has also co-ordinated global, country and regional discussions from different stakeholder groups about the successor frameworks. A road map has been agreed following the UN General Assembly special session of September 2013 to move these discussions towards a definitive way forward for the UN to agree a successor framework by September 2015.

That is the global process at play, but Ireland has been quite engaged with this and, given our Presidency of the Council of the European Union over the first six months of this year, we had an important role to play in engaging with the EU and member states in terms of their relationship with this process. Ireland hosted an informal meeting of EU development Ministers in February 2013 which was the first substantive political-level discussion in the EU about the post-2015 framework, which became a priority of the Irish Presidency. In April 2013, during our Presidency, Ireland, along with the Mary Robinson Foundation - Climate Justice, hosted a major international conference on the interlinked themes of hunger, nutrition and the impact of climate change with the explicit purpose of giving poorer communities around the world a voice on the international stage where they could have their say and make proposals to key international policy makers about the issues of concern to them that need to be reflected in the post-2015 framework.

During our Presidency, Ireland engaged with the Environment and Development Commissions, the European External Action Service and the respective Council Secretariats to agree an integrated set of Council conclusions, which were presented to the Foreign Affairs Council in June 2013. For the first time, that brought together the environment communities and the development communities with a view to preventing duplication of international conferences and goals and agreeing a single set of coherent goals. That was approved by the General Affairs Council in June 2013.

Ireland has engaged with the open working group on sustainable development goals. We are engaged with Denmark and Norway in a constituency as one of the 30 members of that group. Ireland's role was further underlined by the appointment of our permanent representative to the UN by the UN Secretary General to co-facilitate the preparations for the September event to agree a timeframe and a process for the finalisation of the post-2015 framework. The Tánaiste was the only EU leader at these discussions, in addition to the President of the European Commission, who addressed the opening session of UN meeting. The Tánaiste also chaired one of the closing sessions. At the UN, the Tánaiste committed Ireland to supporting new global development goals beyond 2015 and focused on the need to bring together the different communities such as the environment and development communities to agree bold targets to end extreme poverty and hunger and to protect our environment. He called for global goals with a clear commitment to implementation at national level, with specific new targets on hunger and nutrition; a strong new emphasis on agriculture, especially climate-sensitive agriculture; and a stronger and much more specific approach on the rights of women and girls.

That is the process for developing the post-2015 goals. I will now talk about the means of financing them. Over the past number of years, there have been many discussions about how the global community can finance new goals in support of poverty reduction and sustainable protection of the environment beyond 2015. Since 2000, when the initial MDGs were agreed, there have been many changes globally which are reflected in the way we approach development finance. In particular, the effects of the global economic downturn have had an impact on official development assistance, ODA, budgets. In many situations, the volume of ODA assistance has declined. There are new requirements in terms of international financing that have been agreed and brokered through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and are being further discussed as we speak at a meeting in Poland. There are additional financing needs in the area of climate change.

There was a time when, for many countries, ODA was a major component of development financing. That is not the case in many lower and middle-income countries at this point in time, although many of the least development countries are still very dependent on ODA. There are other forms of financing - remittances, money from foundations, debt and global and country-specific taxation - which need to be considered as forms of financing for the new development targets. To address this issue, the EU has issued a communication called Beyond 2015: Towards a Comprehensive and Integrated Approach to Financing Poverty Eradication and Sustainable Development. This is the first time the European Commission has engaged with how to address the issue of financing in a coherent manner. The development of this communication very much follows on from the Council conclusions agreed during the Irish Presidency, in which the European Union reaffirmed the need for a coherent and co-ordinated approach to the post-2015 framework.

Similarly, there are now calls across the European Union for a common and coherent approach to reaching agreement on how the post-2015 framework will be financed. The Commission's communication outlines the key issues for member states and the process and principles that should underpin a Europe-wide approach to the issue. The Commission suggests that because of the various international processes working on finance for developing countries, they need to be made coherent and mutually reinforcing with a commonly agreed set of principles. The Commission also argues that countries should be in the driving seat in determining where and how they generate the resources, where resources should be allocated and how resources should be prioritised at country level.

The communication notes that although the relative importance of ODA has declined in many but not all countries, it remains a key source of finance for lower income countries. To support domestic resource mobilisation, it notes the need to reform tax systems, strengthen tax administrations and implement legislation to reduce corruption. It highlights the need to focus on the effectiveness and quality of current spending, as well as on mobilising additional resources. It also highlights the drain on the public finances of many countries of illicit flows such as the proceeds of crime, tax evasion and corruption. It also raises the contentious issue of the future definition and role of ODA. This was first defined in the 1970s and a number of voices in the international community argue that the role and contribution of ODA need to be redefined in a changed context. The communication identifies the importance of private investments as the key drivers of growth and of remittances and private philanthropy as important sources of financing for developing countries. Following from the communication, it is proposed that Council conclusions on financing poverty eradication and sustainable development beyond 2015 will be adopted at the December Foreign Affairs Council.

I will conclude by referring to Ireland's engagement with this process. Ireland welcomes the Commission's communication as providing a good basis from which to build on our consideration of this complex issue. Work has started in Brussels on a joint development, environment and political working group format and we are closely engaged with these discussions and communicating with other Departments such as the Departments of the Environment, Community and Local Government and Public Expenditure and Reform in regard to Ireland's input. The Government is strongly committed to Ireland's overseas aid programme and its place at the heart of Ireland's foreign policy. The focus of our programme is on least developed countries, where there remains a significant dependence on ODA as distinct from other forms of development finance. On a per capitabasis Ireland is among the top eight providers globally of ODA as a percentage of GNI. In the course of this year the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade launched a new policy for international development which highlights the fact that lasting solutions to poverty and hunger must be underpinned by developing countries' ability to raise revenue. Aid is increasingly seen as a catalyst for development rather than the main driver. The policy recognises that aid is a major form of development finance for 30 to 40 of the poorest countries in the world.

This year Ireland has broadly stabilised the funding for overseas development assistance, despite our difficult economic circumstances. In 2014 the Estimates provide for €602 million in official development assistance. This will represent a small reduction on spending in 2013. Ireland's achievement in protecting its aid budget has been recognised by partners among the G77 group of developing countries at the United Nations and the OECD DAC.

The Government's new policy on international development focuses sharply on the poorest countries and communities in sub-Saharan Africa and the goals of reducing hunger, building sustainable growth and good governance and enshrining human rights. It provides a clear framework for the prioritisation of activities and the allocation of resources to maximise impact, strengthen accountability and demonstrate value for money in the coming years. The new policy also reconfirms our commitment to achieving the UN target of providing 0.7% of gross national product for ODA when economic circumstances permit.

Ireland remains committed to a single comprehensive framework and a single set of global goals, as agreed in the June 2013 Council conclusions. Building on the progress made during the Irish Presidency, we support a common and comprehensive approach to financing development beyond 2015. It will be important for the Council conclusions to highlight the important role ODA continues to play and the European Union's global leadership role in providing ODA. The European Union is the single biggest provider of ODA globally. ODA remains a major source of finance for low income countries and the European Union supports a rebalancing of external public financing towards the countries most in need. This is set out in the new EU policy on development assistance, which Ireland fully supports. From Ireland's perspective, any suggestion about reforming the ODA concept will need careful examination. It is important to maintain the integrity and credibility of the ODA concept. There may be some efforts in the global financing debate to seek to reduce donor efforts in meeting agreed targets. This would make the process of agreeing a new set of global development goals significantly more difficult. While recognising the potential of using grants to leverage public and private sector resources, we need to ensure this does not divert ODA from the provision of basic services in developing countries.

It is important that the Council conclusions reiterate the importance of domestic resource mobilisation, including taxation, and highlight the importance of taking action to improve domestic resource mobilisation at the national level. Ireland's position in this regard is reflected in our new development policy and our efforts to deepen the engagement of the Revenue Commissioners with the aid programme in order to help our partners to improve their institutions' ability to collect domestic revenues.

I welcome the active engagement of civil society, both in Ireland and internationally, on the complex issue of financing for development. At the UN high level event in September the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Joe Costello, took part in dialogue between civil society, governments and UN representatives and launched Trocaire's report, My Rights Beyond 2015: Making the Post 2015 Framework Accountable to the World's Poor.

I will be happy to take questions from members.