Anthony Lawlor (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman for allowing me to speak. I hope to be part of the committee in the near future. The witnesses have spoken about worldwide and national awareness. There is a role for Dóchas to take a lead on that as it is the umbrella body for all the organisations. Perhaps Dóchas could access funding to make the people aware of what is going on. Rather than having seven or eight different bodies, Dóchas could be the lead player in that and could be responsible for informing the public.

Everyone talks about the UN, which is a huge body. It is becoming more and more ineffective. I see the EU becoming a much more effective body because it is a smaller grouping. The near neighbour fund and the accountability for it was mentioned and its focus on migration was mentioned. Migration comes about because people in certain sub-Saharan countries want to believe they are heading for the promised land. We should be developing the promised land in their own countries. Some of that funding could be directed towards that. Rather than looking at it as a bloc of people coming in, maybe we could direct the funding back to the countries this migration is coming from and work towards that. I see Dóchas having a role in that.

Accountability has been mentioned. I keep going back to my little bugbear which is aid effectiveness. I do not hear much about it now. It seems to be gone off the agenda. I would like the opinion of the witnesses on this matter. That is what we should be going back to. Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan and I were very much involved in a programme to get parliamentarians in countries where aid money from here was going to make their governments accountable. That is probably the best way of doing it rather than us, as parliamentarians in Ireland, chasing up where the cents are spent in Ghana, Tanzania or Mozambique. For example, parliamentarians in Mozambique should make the Government of the country accountable for the aid. Much of the money is pooled rather than being allocated to specific areas.

Deputy Barrett has argued there should be a debate in the Dáil. There should also be a debate in the Seanad. It is a much freer forum and there are much better opportunities for us to discuss this more openly. I suggest to Seanad colleagues here that we make a drive to put it on the agenda. If the Dáil wants to follow the Seanad, so be it.