Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am glad you mentioned agriculture. As you know, ours is a good agricultural country and we export a great deal of food. Certainly, the Irish Aid programme and the NGO programmes work with agriculture. Africa is a very rich continent and it has good land. We have seen the projects on our visits. We have seen the developing nurseries and the training of farmers. The skilled people we send abroad, including the agricultural specialists, are doing trojan work in those countries.

To answer the question about Ireland and why we are so generous, it is in our nature to be generous. It probably dates back to missionary times when our priests and nuns went abroad to do some great work. Indeed, on some of our travels we have visited nuns and priests who have been missionaries for 50 years in Africa and have been doing tremendous work in assisting and educating people as well as in the medical profession. Obviously, those missionaries are scarce now and Irish Aid and Irish NGOs are carrying on their good work. There is also the response to the graphic television pictures we have seen when there is a tragedy, such as what happened due to the hunger in Somalia and recent events in the Philippines and in other areas. The Irish seem to respond to these. We are generous by nature and these graphic pictures obviously touch the hearts of many Irish people. That is the reason.