Peter Power (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

The question did not mention corruption and focused on the feasibility and appropriateness of adopting one country. The supplementary question referred to corruption, which is a very different, although important, issue. The question of whether we can deliver aid effectively by adopting a country is one I do not agree with. If it is brought to a logical conclusion, it would mean that every donor country should adopt a recipient country, although that use of language is slightly outmoded. The Deputy knows what I am getting at.

One would ultimately come back to a real position of neo-colonialism, where a country from the North would adopt a country from the South, with all the very unfortunate consequences attendant on that. I would not like to pick a country for Ireland to adopt but if we did, we would be the sole director of government policy in that country and turn it into a welfare recipient of the donor country. What would happen in a practical way if the relationship broke down and the donor had to withdraw from the recipient country? Where would that leave the recipient country?

Notwithstanding such issues, there would be unfortunate consequences in terms of our lesson learning ability across our programme countries. We gain significant experience in some countries, which we learn from and adopt in other countries in a very systematic way. Such action could lead to very unfortunate consequences and is not recognised as being best practice internationally.

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