Conor Lenihan (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy, in his desire to be negative and oppositional in this House, may be on his own. Virtually every other party in the Seanad and in this House has acknowledged that the Irish response, at Government and non-governmental level, has been extraordinarily generous.

For the Deputy's benefit, I would like to quote someone who is very highly regarded in the development community worldwide, Mr. Jim Wolfensohn, who was president of the World Bank, which has not been raided for a long time. Mr. Wolfensohn is a highly respected figure who has refocused the World Bank over the last ten or 20 years in a pro-development sense. He said on "Morning Ireland" that he was deeply impressed by what Ireland had done, stating that, quite apart from the Government contribution of €20 million, the public had come up with €50 million and that €70 million from a country of 4 million people was quite remarkable. He said that he had been able to tell the Taoiseach what an example Ireland was and talk to the Minister for Finance, Deputy Cowen, and the Minister of State with responsibility for development, since their country had shown tremendous capacity and heart, and the Irish people were to be congratulated on their approach to development. That is what one of the leading development figures globally said about our contribution.

See this speech in context