Eric Byrne (Dublin South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is always a pleasure to have Mr. Gaffey before the committee to make the case on behalf of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Irish Aid, because we play a very important role, which has been recognised internationally. The respect among the international community for Ireland's ability to deliver effective aid is illustrated by the fact that David O'Donoghue and his Kenyan counterpart have been given key roles. How do two people engage with the United Nations, which as far as I am aware comprises at least 162 countries? One would imagine that two people would require a huge team of civil servants to be able to engage with so many different countries on formulating a framework. Having said that, the goals are fantastic and nobody could suggest that we should not be dealing with poverty education, food nutrition, health education, gender equality and women's empowerment, which are all spectacularly important.

It is one thing to create the new bible or some other book under which the world should act, but it is something else to extract from these countries a commitment to sustainable development, something which will be a crucial part of the programme of the Addis Ababa conference. For example, how does Irish Aid engage with so many countries that are clearly politically corrupt and where corruption is rife? I just learned that the economy of Brazil, which we used to aspire to mimic, is now in decline and that part of the reason for its decline is that the political system is endemically corrupt. One must also question the major world power, China. How would our team engage with China on the very important developmental goals? They have a fundamental difference of opinion on how to hand out aid, particularly in Africa.

Then there is the thorny subject of our recipient countries. Uganda tried to steal money from the Irish Aid programme and other programmes, and I am tragically disturbed to read that Moldova, which has just come out of a general election, is now in the throes of imploding again because of €5 billion that has gone missing. It is corruption, corruption, corruption. How do the witnesses formulate policies to reassure the Irish people that these countries are capable of curbing their tax evasion and illicit financial flows to promote tax effectiveness?

It is a complicated world and not everybody is pure white, but Irish Aid is nevertheless obligated through the United Nations to engage with these countries.

The mystery is how does one engage with these countries to bring them on board with policy approval and financial commitments when we know they are endemically corrupt and do not properly implement domestic tax policy, for example.