Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

Now that the Government has reinstated the promise that Ireland would reach the 0.7% target, it is time that the policy drift in our overseas development aid programme, the spending of money by Development Cooperation Ireland and the positions assumed by the Department of Finance on the spending of taxpayers' money on development were examined. My views on the objectives of the Ireland aid programme when I was Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, which were shared by my successors, focused on poverty alleviation and capacity building.

I fundamentally disagree with the review of the Irish aid programme, which was accepted by this Government. The review's message is that the Government should effectively issue large blank cheques to multilateral organisations and UN organisations without any precise sense of how the money spent will advance poverty alleviation and capacity building for developing countries. Various UN organisations, such as UNICEF and the United Nations Development Programme, have attempted reform processes with some degree of success. We have also heard that the World Bank has attempted some process of reform, owing to the influence of people like Joe Stiglitz, to whom Deputy Bruton referred. However, in the White Paper and in the Estimates, the Government is committing a record €79 million to the International Development Association and €7.4 million to the Asian Development Fund. That total of almost €87 million, as well as the consequent annual rises, will effectively be without almost any scrutiny, either by this House, by development agencies in Ireland or by the experts in development issues in this country, that is, Development Cooperation Ireland. These significant amounts of money will be entirely under the supervision of the Department of Finance. When the finance committee visited Washington some time ago, we took the opportunity to meet the World Bank and to meet the Irish representative in the IMF. The IMF gave us the oldest of neoliberal, free market, globalisation rhetoric that I have ever heard. This is what the agenda for Ireland is in practice, in its participation in the fund and the agencies dominated by the fund, such as those agencies mentioned today.

We will make significant increases in public money and the Department of Finance has an agenda of putting money into the various development banks around the world. Our aid programme will rise by more than €100 million per annum to €670 million. In Irish domestic terms, this is significant but we are not a big player internationally. As we spread this money around like jam across the development banks, there is no coherent strategy on what this is meant to achieve for poverty alleviation and capacity building. We know about the scandals that have emerged over the years surrounding the fund and the agencies that are creatures of the fund. We know what has happened with so many World Bank projects. Can the Minister of State give an undertaking that the Government honours its obligation under section 10 of the Bretton Woods Agreement (Amendment) Act 1999 to produce an annual report on Ireland's participation in the World Bank and the IMF? Can he give an undertaking that that annual report should include particulars of policy positions taken by Ireland at the bank and the fund? The Government has never fully honoured this obligation. The latest annual report gives no details of policy positions taken by this country on our key objectives in development aid, which are poverty alleviation and capacity building. Requests that have been submitted under the Freedom of Information Act by those who are experts in development issues have not even been answered.

We enter this process just as the branch of the Department of Foreign Affairs with the expertise in the field is to be moved to Limerick and is to lose 100% of its management. Mr. Finbarr Flood, the chairman of the decentralisation implementation group, acknowledged that the DIG has no idea what will happen to Development Cooperation Ireland when it loses 100% of its management. Nothing has been done about this.

I want a commitment from the Minister of State that the participation and role taken by finance officials on the IMF and the World Bank will be made fully accountable to the Dáil, as it ought to be. The Taoiseach has made many headline noises about being fully behind the campaign to make poverty history, but why have we no information about how these amazingly powerful organisations operate in an increasingly globalised world? The Department must put a mechanism in place to tackle this deficit. The joining of the Asian Development Bank is an opportunity to put in place such a mechanism, covering both moneys given and policy positions taken. When I visited the bank and the fund with the finance committee, I put very specific questions to the bank about the situation in Zambia and the privatisation of key elements of public services and banking, which were part of the IMF conditions on reforming the Zambian economy. The bank was not able or willing to answer my questions. I was told I would receive details, but I am still waiting for the details of the bank's response to the enormous flow of information provided to it on how damaging its proposals were. The Irish Jesuits in Zambia have produced detailed reports and have even held conferences here about what the bank is doing in countries like Zambia. Deputy Bruton highlighted the situation in Gambia following the privatisation of water services there. I would like to highlight the privatisation of the water supply in Dar es Salaam. In large areas of Dar es Salaam inTanzania — one of the poorest countries in the world — the supply of water is a disaster because of the attempts by the bank and the fund to have it privatised. Can the Minister of State give an undertaking that our money will not be used to privatise the key public services in desperately poor developing countries in the disastrous way——

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