Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I thank the Chair for the opportunity and for the level of engagement. This should be a committee in which there is great space for cross-party agreement, and we can embrace a collective drive. I sensed that this afternoon. I wish to address a couple of the points raised in the second round. Some of them are a bit more general. Deputy Brennan raised one clear issue related to Senator Higgins's point on negative propaganda. The issues that the vast majority of Oireachtas Members have been facing in our constituencies over the past year or two that have caused real concern for our constituents such as rising food and energy prices and the changing migration patterns all stem from global insecurity. How do we address global insecurity? The most efficient way is at source. It is by making sure that people in the global south and developing world are given the best opportunities to simply live healthy lives, to make sure they get an education, to make sure there are economic opportunities, to make sure there is equality of opportunity and to make sure there is safety from violence, be it through conflict or societal. That is why international development, to refer to Senator Higgins’s point, is so important, and why we all have to be prepared, as right-thinking people, to take on lazy narratives that I thought I only heard on social media and on the Internet but sadly that I have heard twice at EU Foreign Affairs Council meetings delivered by Ministers from other member states, which is extremely worrying.

Regarding Senator Stephenson's point on EU trade agreements and the differing interests of member states, it is clear that Ireland has a distinctly different opinion from certain member states on the EU-Israel association agreement. That does not mean in any instance that we should stop our level of advocacy or stop our approach to it but it does mean that when we look at future trade agreements, we make sure the human rights clauses are as watertight as we want but that we have to get political buy-in from member states. If we look at other trade agreements that are in the ether, they are far more advanced than when I worked alongside Senator O'Loughlin on the European Committee of the Regions Trade for All report more than a decade ago.

On Senator Higgins's point relating to the financing of development, which it goes to all of the points raised, the meetings in Seville will take place in late June, early July. They are not happening in isolation. We have the ongoing EU development ministers meetings, both formal and informal, that will lead to the meeting of development ministers at the G20 in South Africa in late July where Ireland is an invited guest thanks to our South African friends. It will also lead to the UN General Assembly where there will be a specific day relating to development issues in late September followed by the next round of the COP in Brazil where there is a specific day related to development in addressing climate change and the seventh EU Africa Union summit that is due to take place in Africa by the end of the year. I attended a meeting of EU and African members last week in Brussels. This is the sort of timeline in the very near future where all the issues raised in this discussion have an opportunity to be raised, for us to reach agreement and for us to send the very clear message of the importance of this.

Senator Higgins and others very rightly mentioned the work of aid agencies and smaller local-led organisations. When they talked about making sure they are rights-based, I thought about the work of Front Line Defenders, which is based in Blackrock, but is very impactful in the developing world. Equally, when director general Gaffey and I met with human rights defenders in Liberia to discuss draft anti-LGBTI legislation coming into the Liberian Parliament, that is the real substantial work that is going on and is right to do.

Senator Higgins mentioned the IDEA, I look forward to addressing its meeting in Malahide tomorrow, which I think she knew about, as well as the Global Education Awards in Dublin Castle on Friday where we will talk to primary school students and their teachers and principals, people like Deputy O'Sullivan, who had that opportunity in the classroom, he has a different role now, to make sure the we impart this value system into the next generation in what is an increasingly difficult, and to be quite frank, scary global situation we face into. Now is the time for Ireland to seize the opportunity and the challenge and to be outspoken on our value system and more importantly to put our money where our mouth is.