Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Drummond is very welcome. I wish to congratulate him and his 9 million members around the world who are doing such wonderful work in helping the underprivileged and the poor. Irish people are extremely generous. When I was a young boy, there was a box in the classroom where one put money for the black babies. We were brought up with a concern for Africa and the poor. In terms of education, it actually embedded in people's minds that it is good to give. The generosity of Irish people is excellent. Things have moved on now and we do not have boxes in the classrooms any more. Ireland has become more educated but it has also become more critical. We have this influx of people from other parts of the world into our society. While fully supporting the work that Mr. Drummond's organisation does, people are, generally speaking, becoming more questioning as to what is being done with the money that is being spent because they see a lot of abuse. I am making this point because we have to be able to answer these questions. We must be able to answer them in the context of the requests being made by organisations like the ONE campaign and others for an increase the size of the aid budget. There is not enough feedback in terms of where the money is going and whether it is being targeted. When one looks at some countries, particularly in Africa, one sits back in despair. Some of the first troops we ever sent on a peacekeeping mission were sent to Congo but when I looked at the television last night, I thought to myself that it has gone backwards. This is what people see and they are wondering if we have made any progress at all. Then they begin to ask where the money is going.

The point I am making is that there is not an unwillingness to increase our percentage in terms of contributions but we must be able to answer the people that we represent. I would like to think that any money I would give would be invested in areas like education and health because we will never get rid of poverty until we educate people. That is a fact. The more ignorant one keeps people, the less capable they are of making hard decisions for themselves and so on.

I would like to hear Mr. Drummond's views on this issue. In the context of the vast sums of money spent on aid, is there any move towards placing more emphasis on education and health services as distinct from just allocating money for various projects? We do not know if those projects succeed or disappear. I hope Mr. Drummond appreciates the point I am trying to make. I am not in any way being critical. I just think it is worthwhile, when we have people like Mr. Drummond before us, to give him the opportunity to answer the questions that are put to us when we go looking for increases in aid and so on. I ask Mr. Drummond to give us a broad outline in that regard.