John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

I wish to share time with Deputies Finian McGrath and Morgan. While I agree with Deputy Carey that trade liberalisation does not necessarily benefit developing countries, I do not agree that Paul Wolfowitz is the best person to cite on the issue of helping the poorest people on the planet. Mr. Wolfowitz is a paragon of the neoliberal philosophy which has resulted in an increasing gap between rich and poor. The best way to address the problems of the developing countries is to examine some of the solutions they have put forward.

Aspects of recent World Trade Organisation agreements, particularly the agreement on agriculture, AoA, have had negative impacts on developing countries. The greatest negative effect of trade liberalisation in this area has taken the form of agricultural goods being dumped on developing countries by developed countries and other developing countries. Two measures proposed by developing countries within the AoA negotiations are special products — SP — designation and special safeguard mechanism, SSM. These are designed to protect developing countries by safeguarding their food security and rural development interests.

Special products should be exempt from tariff reductions and should not be subject to restricting conditions. Developing countries should have the right and flexibility to declare for themselves specific SPs with respect to their own food security, livelihood security and rural development objectives. The criteria for selection of SPs should include the contribution to trade; the contribution to agricultural production; the link to livelihood, for example, the number of citizens employed in making products predominantly produced by low-income, small-scale farmers; and the link to food security, for example, the contribution to citizens' calorie intake.

In the long term, we must change the development model in terms of the respective roles of developed and developing countries. The current system is simply not sustainable. When I attended the summit on sustainability, it seemed clear that the elites in developing countries want to buy into the globalisation model. It is the wrong way to go, however. The global growth rate of 1.4% annually may continue for 20 years, by which time the supply of conventional oil will be gone. How then will developing countries export their produce? This has not been factored into the equation, perhaps not even by the NGOs which support developing nations.

That is what my party tried to convey yesterday when we talked about global warming and climate change. I ask the Government to address this serious problem. India and China are growing by 10% annually. It is not sustainable.

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