Dan Neville (Limerick, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the delegation and I thank them for the presentation. The work of the group is very valuable. I have seen the slums and shanty towns in Lusaka, Windhoek and Johannesburg. One has to see the conditions of the houses and the sanitation to fully understand how people live. In many cases, just next to the shanty towns there is a lot of wealth on view. In Lusaka the head of the air force lives near a shanty town and he would not even allow people to use his water and they had to travel elsewhere. What kind of commitment is given by the official states? We often detect a sense of detachment from government representatives with regard to this type of good work. Many NGOs have experienced this attitude in the Third World. We saw how GOAL works with homeless children in Lusaka who are quick to respond to training and to the provision of decent human living conditions. They learn to help themselves. There has been quite a lot of growth in Ethiopia even though this is from a low base. How much of the new wealth is put towards alleviating the conditions that Habitat for Humanity wants to address?