Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

In recent weeks I had conflicting emotions when I read about Madonna and her adoption of David Banda, but it put Malawi on the map, particularly for young people. Sometime earlier, Ms Angelina Jolie and Mr. Brad Pitt had their baby in Namibia, resulting in that country receiving worldwide publicity. In Ireland, Bono and Mr. Bob Geldof, through Live Aid and Drop the Debt, have made the MTV generation aware of Africa. In that context, the Minister of State's proposal to send a summary of the white paper to every household in the country should be dropped. It will be an absolute waste of money. The amount of interest it will generate will not be sufficient relative to the cost incurred.

I welcome the fact the white paper devotes attention to fostering volunteering again. I spent three years working in Tanzania in the 1980s with Irish Aid programmes and was terribly disappointed when the Government destroyed APSO, at a cost of several million pounds. Now it must reinvest money to try to replace what was already in place.

The Irish Government should be a persuader and an advocate for reform of UN institutions and the IMF. We send blank cheques to many UN institutions. This year we spent €87 million on funding for Bretton Woods and IMF institutions but we do not make our voice heard there about reforms that would help poor in Africa.

The Irish Government should not be a soft touch for corrupt Governments. Unlike many Deputies, I went to Rwanda after the genocide and have been in Uganda. People can say what they like about President Museveni, but he put a stop to the mass genocide in the Luwero Triangle, where 2 million people lost their lives in a killing spree that lasted for 20 years.

The capacity building emphasis of the Irish Aid programme is completely insufficient. Our aid programme was started by a generation of Irish missionaries, nuns and priests and I am proud to say I was friendly with many of them when I lived in Africa and learned a lot from them. They knew how to build capacity in terms of education, the health system and hospitals. The Irish Aid programme must build landmarks. There will be no more useful contribution to the tradition of Irish missionaries and development workers than to follow the lead given, particularly with regard to treating malaria, AIDS and other diseases which are killing children in large numbers.

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