Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being late as I was in the Dáil Chamber for Leaders' Questions. Yesterday I returned from Tanzania. I was there with AWEPA, the Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa. It was a real eye-opener. We saw some of the positive work which is taking place and some of the challenges facing various aid agencies. I congratulate Irish Aid. Many of the projects we visited were excellent. Through a particular programme, rice yields are six times that of neighbouring areas and this was down to Irish Aid involvement.

The witnesses spoke of a Europe-wide approach to many of these problems. The road infrastructure in that part of Africa often means one road leads to, for example, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia or Uganda, and this road has one lane in each direction. If there is a crash, which occurred when we were there, traffic backs up. Some areas have very good roads, but if investment was made in roads in Africa, people would be able to get their goods to market. It is a simple example.

We have examples and comparisons in Ireland about which we could speak to people in Africa. Some of them are historical, for example, hunger, colonisation, rural inequality, rural resettlement and forced emigration.

One can talk on all those issues and the positive thing is that we do not have any hidden agenda, unlike some in the region who are involved in this. I think that went down well. It has had a huge impact on any of those countries in which we are involved, and we have been involved in the poorest of the poor.

Ireland has been made co-facilitator, with Kenya, on the negotiations leading up to the September sustainable development summit. Could the witnesses expand on what they think the priorities should be in that area? When one sees these things being designated, big development summits planned and series of conferences and so on, the big problem is that in many cases ordinary people are left out. What are their plans to include ordinary people in these discussions in Ireland, and more generally to include voices from the global south in the discussions? Over 80% of people support Irish Aid, even right through the recession. That says a great deal. People have inherent memory and they remember the difficulties we went through ourselves. Inequality has increased in Ireland due to austerity and other factors. Are there any plans to link development and inequality in Europe with other regions and to look at the areas of focus of overseas aid and how some of it can end up being abused?

When we were in Tanzania the big issue was that funds had gone missing from the equivalent of the ESB and money ended up in some of the ministers' accounts, similar to what happened in Uganda that time. The message from that was that where we were supporting the public accounts committee and the budget committee, they were the ones who stepped up to the plate when asked, as happened in Uganda with the auditor general's office. They are things that are happening. That is the positive message for development and some of the work we are doing. I congratulate the workers we met on all those projects. We certainly had criticisms of some of the things we saw. We went to one sunflower milling plant where there are buildings and machinery, but it is in the middle of nowhere and there is no electricity. How did that happen?