Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)

We need to examine the role of the EU in respect of the developing world. Disappointment must be expressed at the collective role of EU member states in meeting their millennium development goals, which will not be achieved. Ireland has failed to protest against this and has not met its own goals. The reality is that, in many respects, there is no common EU standard of aid. The aid and trade issue is not being addressed. Many EU countries export military hardware to developing countries, which become inflamed and whose misery and poverty become entrenched as a consequence. Ireland, because of its history, should be more trenchant within the European Union to ensure that more coherent and consistent policies are developed in this area.

The main point I want to make concerns the role of the European Union in respect of Palestine, as mentioned by Deputy Michael D. Higgins. I refer not only to the Union's failure to protest against the occupation of Palestine but also to its failure to protest when the infrastructure of that country, in which it invested, was destroyed in the name of the security of another country. My party and I protest at the European Union's current policy of withholding money from Palestine, notwithstanding the difficulties the Hamas movement poses for many in this part of the world. The people suffering from this policy are individual Palestinians. The failure to provide resources and the shortage of medical supplies will ultimately increase fundamentalism, fanaticism and military and terrorist activity in the Middle East. Ireland, as a member of the European Union, should take no great pride in this policy, which is wrong and dangerous.

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