Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

It is very interesting that the reference to the task force under Professor Stiglitz is at the end of the answer.

Before I ask a supplementary question, and lest any other impression be created, I will say that many people around the world have welcomed the election of a US President who believes in multi-lateralism, the role of diplomacy and a greater commitment to the international institutions.

My question concerns a third institution that was originally drafted, voted on and agreed in 1946, at the same time as the World Bank and the IMF. The reason I asked this question is that I do not believe that the Minister must make a choice and I put this to him. If he accepts that the current financial problems are global in nature and predatory hedge funds and virtual financial instruments created havoc and destruction in the United States before spreading globally, he will agree the appropriate place to start is at the level of the United Nations. The UN arrived at a similar point in 1946. Is it the Government's intention to return to that point?

On the meetings to which the Minister refers, the thinking of President Sarkozy is such as not to dislodge the disease that caused the current international currency crisis. An approach generated through the G8 and G20 or even through the former informing the latter amounts to more of the same and does not deal with the virtual cancer caused by predatory funds dislodging investment from the real economy. For these reasons, the appropriate position for the Government is to approach the issues through the United Nations and try to recover a moment rather similar to that of the Bretton Woods institutions.

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