Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Chairman regarding the great work being done by our embassies and diplomatic personnel abroad. I also thank the committee members for their constant unanimous support for what Irish Aid is doing. Without that, it would be difficult for us to maintain the level of aid we provide. This year's allocation is approximately €600 million, which is a 4% reduction but, nevertheless, in the most difficult circumstances, it is being maintained at a high level.

The commitment based on the programme for Government has been to move towards the 0.7%. That clearly has been very difficult in present circumstances, but as the situation recovers the commitment is that the curve will move in the right direction. We will be looking forward to improvement in the years to come.

Deputy Smith and others asked about Syria. We had a humanitarian pledging conference in Kuwait the week before last. It realised €2.4 billion and the overall target was €6.5 billion so clearly we were short of the amount that was being sought. Ireland made a contribution of €12 million. This is the second pledging conference and last year we made a contribution of, I believe, €4.7 million, but then in the course of the year that increased to €14 million. When one considers the circumstances in Syria, it is the direst conflict that is taking place at present with 130,000 people killed in less than three years and more than 3 million people are refugees or displaced internally. Some 9 million to 10 million, which is nearly half the population, are in serious difficulty on a humanitarian basis. Many of us saw last night's programme which highlighted the executions and deaths of detainees who had been tortured and-or starved in many cases. That may only be the tip of the iceberg and many other atrocities may have yet to come to light. It is an incredibly dire conflict and extremely complicated. Today talks are commencing in Geneva and we are hopeful that some progress can be made.

As an afterthought, regarding the Chairman's trip to Tehran, I met the Iranian Foreign Minister at the pledging conference in Kuwait. He specifically asked to meet me to discuss matters. I asked him to use the good offices that Tehran had with the regime in Syria to allow humanitarian aid freedom of access, which is one of the major problems at present. All of the contributions referred to that. Hopefully some progress can be made in that respect. However, it remains a very difficult situation. There is a difficulty with the quantity of funding required because of the enormity of the problem and the difficulty of the international donor community being able to provide it. That could create a crisis in its own right and the United Nations is very concerned in that respect. Of course the impact on surrounding countries is colossal. These are small countries such as Jordan and Lebanon, which I have visited in recent weeks, as well as Turkey which the Tánaiste visited late last year. These countries and to some extent Iraq and Egypt have all had an enormous burden imposed on the infrastructures of what are already fragile countries, particularly Lebanon and Jordan. All of that creates a very volatile mix on top of the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

I was asked about reductions in the Irish Aid budget. The reduction is 4% but we have endeavoured to keep it as fair and even as possible. Members will notice that the reductions are pretty much between 2% and 4% across the board in each area. We have sought to lengthen out and refocus on areas some of the priority issues with which we deal so that no area is excessively damaged. The largest quantitative cut will be in the area of the funding that is used bilaterally through our embassies in the various partner countries and also regarding the various NGOs with which we deal. We are very anxious to retain emergency aid and we have been one of the very strong contributors to emergency aid throughout the world both in areas of immediate need and also in areas with long-term and forgotten conflicts.

Deputy Eric Byrne asked about the €1.7 million going to our universities. The relationship between our third level institutions and colleges abroad, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, is substantial and it is important that we maintain that. We also have the young scientist of the year in Tanzania, which is an extraordinarily successful initiative. I am contemplating extending that to other sectors in Africa. I believe it is extremely important to retain our emphasis on the links between the educational systems in the various countries.

In Uganda the money has all been restored - there is no question about that. In October 2012 the Tánaiste suspended more than €16 million of assistance that was due to be channelled through the Government of Uganda, as a result of the discovery of fraud in the office of the Prime Minister. The full funding that had been misappropriated was restored to Irish funds by Christmas. I compliment our director, Mr. Brendan Rogers, on the urgency with which he pursued the matter. Subsequently we pressed the Government of Uganda for concerted action following the fraud. To date the Ugandan director of public prosecutions has opened 99 case files and Irish Aid will be following these very closely. The cases are with the director of public prosecutions and the will obviously be following due process.

In 2014 the aid programme will be delivered through non-governmental partners as well as ongoing support to the office of the auditor general to strengthen its forensic investigation and special audit functions. We have taken very strong action in that respect. When I was in Uganda in November I met the auditor general and his officers. We, of course, have been contributing to the strengthening of the capacity of the auditor and his officers. That office has the country divided into six sections and has recruited approximately 400 people allowing it to move into all the different areas on the ground. They gave the impression of having a detailed and intensive operational capacity at this point.

I further indicated to the auditor general that I would invite him to come to Ireland at an appropriate time in the first half of the year to address this committee and to address other functions so that we could bring to the attention of the people the steps that have been taken by Irish Aid and the capacity that was now being created in Uganda and other countries in which we are engaged to ensure that matters of this nature do not recur. We also want to highlight that when this occurred the office of the auditor general had the capacity to go right up to the office of the Prime Minister and investigate what had happened.

A number of Deputies expressed sadness at the closure of our embassy in Lesotho with which we would all agree. It was opened in 1974 and is our oldest programme - now partner - country.

At the time of apartheid there was no direct relationship between South Africa and Lesotho. We do not in any way intend to detract from our engagement in terms of the quantity of aid and this commitment will remain. Lesotho and South Africa have a customs union. Lesotho is a middle income country and much progress has been made. Of course we are nostalgic for the Irish ponies coming from Connemara and the good work done in years gone by, but there will be no diminution and this will continue. In many ways it will be enhanced because we will engage with South Africa as well as the Government in Lesotho on Irish Aid. The aid programme will continue.

Deputy Crowe mentioned this is the seventh cut to overseas development aid and I spoke about this originally. Unfortunately overseas development aid has decreased by approximately one third since 2008. The Tánaiste and I hope this will be the last cut, but we must see the economic recovery which takes place and we must be cognisant of Irish citizens because it is taxpayers' money. We cannot remove ourselves from the citizenry who pay the bills and they must come with us all the way. We must be very sensitive on these matters. We have endeavoured to keep the cuts to the minimum and we would like to begin to move the curve in the other direction as we move into 2015.

Ireland is the largest contributor per capita in the world to non-governmental organisations and we engage to a great extent with our international non-governmental organisations, such as Trócaire, GOAL, Oxfam and Concern. Much Irish aid is given through these trusted international organisations. They have people on the ground and know what the situation is and we relate to them very well.

Deputy O'Sullivan expressed concern that some of the work we do might be undermined by a lack of human rights in countries in which we are engaged or a lack of European Union policy. Human rights are at the very core of our participation and we make this very clear. We would never go on a mission anywhere without meeting human rights organisations and civil society and we would never go anywhere without raising such issues where they need to be raised. The homosexuality legislation introduced in Uganda has not been signed by the President and it is not likely to be signed by the President. Much of this has been due to the hard work done on the ground by the Irish Embassy and other like-minded people in Uganda. Much good work is being done, although some of it may not appear out front.

Israel, Colombia, Morocco and Western Sahara were mentioned. Free trade agreements signed by the European Union always contain a condition on human rights. With regard to Israel we were very upfront in arguing the case that any upgrade in the relationship should be in line with human rights commitments, particularly in the Mediterranean agreement originally signed in 1995. During the Irish Presidency we pressed for and managed to achieve agreement on the passage of a directive on multinational companies dealing with mining, oil and timber logging and the engagement between developing countries and the European Union so there is transparency in the manner in which multinational companies engage with regard to the type of funding contributions made and how various licenses and services are paid for. This is a major step forward in transparency in EU engagement with developing countries.

With regard to biofuels we argued for a reduction, and a compromise arrangement was reached, as is very often the case. The amount of biofuels to be used for transport purposes was changed from 10% to 7% and we had sought 5%. It was a considerable reduction given the original decision. We did our best in this respect.

Tax justice is always a major issue with regard to the relationships. Progress has been made in Bali by the World Trade Organization and this will be beneficial to developing countries. We seek to make progress on economic partnership agreements with various regional groupings throughout Africa, which is where the negotiations are taking place. Much of this is being dealt with by Commissioner De Gucht and the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. We have been anxious to push it on to reach agreement because we have been waiting since 2000 to progress them. Ireland was one of the countries which wrote a letter to the Commissioner in November seeking maximum flexibility by the Commissioner on the economic partnership agreements, so if countries feel industries need protection for a period of time, exemptions can be made in this respect. We would like flexibility to be the basic principle in this regard. We are working with the OECD to try to reach agreement on the overall global taxation system. It cannot be done by one country alone; it can only be done globally and multilaterally. During our Presidency of the European Union we pushed to get the OECD to sponsor this approach.

Ireland has much to offer South Sudan in terms of working for peace. Our new policy will contribute enormously to our engagement at this level as it focuses very strongly on fragile countries. The decision by the Tánaiste to locate an embassy in Kenya, which is the hub for east Africa, will allow much easier access to Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan. We will engage with fragile countries. We have always indicated our focus is on countries with the greatest needs and no countries are in greater need than the fragile countries. Figures indicate that of the countries in the world whose populations will live on $1 a day in 2015, 50% are fragile countries. None of the fragile countries is going any way towards meeting the 2015 millennium development goals and we have serious problems in this regard. Other countries have neglected hidden conflicts such as that in the Central African Republic, but we have always contributed to the common humanitarian fund of the United Nations for hidden conflicts.

The situation in the Central African Republic has blown up into a major conflict. If underlying problems have been festering for decades, for example, poverty and underdevelopment, they eventually blow up and come out in the form of ethnic and religious conflict, which is how the situation is presented to the world, but basic poverty is the real issue. We have been trying to keep these matters in the limelight for a long time. I would like to see us proceeding in that direction and perhaps leading a group of like-minded countries to focus on hidden conflicts that suddenly blow up and leave people wondering what has been happening and operating in the belief that it is all about religious or ethnic struggles when the real underlying cause is neglect. We have fragile states and peacekeeping to a greater degree in mind.
I thank Deputy Durkan for his congratulations on our response to various humanitarian issues. We have been very good. Irish Aid is extraordinary, quick and urgent in all of its responses. Consider the Philippines, where we were the first to arrive. Per capita, we have made the largest contribution to the Philippines. We sent our rapid deployment force and four airlifts of essential goods as early as possible. We also sent engineers to deal with infrastructural problems. We consider the hidden conflicts, outbreaks, humanitarian crises and tsunamis, but we also carefully consider the sustainability of the Philippines. I expect to visit that country before too long to determine how to progress our work over the next couple of years. We will not forget about it.
Deputy Durkan raised the issue of Lesotho and the fact that we will leave it. We are upgrading in Sierra Leone. It is a fragile country, it is just exiting a conflict. There are child soldiers and significant gender issues arising from what happened during the conflict. We have been to the forefront in working on gender issues, both with men and women, and issues involving children. Our new policy on sustainability and fragile situations will help. Through the Irish Presidency, it was incorporated in the agenda for change, which is the EU's core policy.
The EU has been considering it. The other matter that we have managed to get the EU to agree on is the overall framework for the post-2015 negotiations. This is the other side of much of our work this year. We are a member of the open working group with Denmark and Norway. Shortly, I will visit New York to discuss one of the group's later meetings. We are coming to a conclusion on many matters. The high-level panel has reported. Prime Minister David Cameron and some other world leaders chaired it. Another major conference to be held in Mexico will put much of the substance together. We will feed into it in September 2014. Our embassy in New York enjoyed considerable success in co-chairing the summit last September, when we achieved agreement on a document and further negotiations on the 2015 millennium development goals, which will lead into a final conclusion in September 2015. We are still involved in all of these initiatives after having established the framework and played a major role in the progress to date. Our new policy reflects all of this.
The Chairman remarked on the committee's work. I seldom go anywhere where the committee on foreign affairs has not left its footprint. If it has not-----