Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

The privatisation of water and sewerage in desperately poor Third World countries where so many children die before reaching their second birthday has been almost an unmitigated disaster. That is the conclusion not just of labour parties around the world but many of the Minister of State's colleagues in right wing parties who have looked at conditions in such countries. I suggest the Minister of State looks at some examples on the ground at some stage. I do not believe he is without compassion and if he saw what was happening I do not doubt he would respond in a fair manner. One cannot compare what has happened in America or some European countries with what is going on in some of the poorest countries in the world — the rapacious greed and corruption as regards some of the privatisation programmes.

I do not know how familiar the Minister of State is with Mongolia. I am not particularly familiar with it, but he probably has heard of a remarkable Irish woman, Ms Christine Noble and the Christine Noble Foundation. I do not know whether he knows, but after the fall of communism in the Soviet Union, Mongolian society in many ways collapsed. Mongolia has the highest number of children in the world living in sewers. Many Irish people and businesses have given enormous support to the work of the Christine Noble Foundation. This support has come right across the business community for the work the foundation is doing. Corruption in Mongolia, as I have been told by people involved with the foundation, is probably on a scale that we can barely comprehend.

We are asking for accountability. The Irish aid programme needs to take a quantum leap of imagination with extra money coming in. I appeal to the Minister of State on the grounds that aid only works well where it is planned and above all, where it is accountable. The Minister of State has rightly referred in his speech to governments being accountable and said that was part of the fund's objectives. However, if the International Monetary Fund and its agencies have no accountability for what they do, then there is an enormous risk. I lived in Dar es Salaam when the men from the IMF arrived with briefcases to shut down free primary education to make the budget balance. It meant that girls were knocked out of primary school because families that had boys and girls opted to keep the males in school.

Such policies have a catastrophic impact on developing world countries. I ask the Minister of State to give a commitment in his response to accountability. An enormous amount of money, €80 million, will be spent this year through fund mechanisms, reflecting a major increase of thousands of per cent. I urge him to please not make this a blank cheque for the World Bank and IMF institutions. Make it accountable and make it useful.

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