Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I wish to be associated with the expressions of sympathy and condolence to the Haitian people, the United Nations personnel who lost their lives, the Concern employee and the Irish citizen working with the United Nations.

This is a tragedy of colossal proportions. In the tsunami five years ago between 150,000 and 160,000 lost their lives whereas the estimate in Haiti is already 200,000 and growing in what is a small country of 9 million people. It is a huge disaster and a terrible tragedy. It is not simply an act of God as there has been massive poverty and mismanagement in Haiti for generations, which has given rise to the absence of proper infrastructure. In the case of housing, much accommodation is in the form of shanty towns unable to deal with something as substantial as a major earthquake or its aftershocks. Many people are living out in the open and afraid to go back to their collapsed or semi-collapsed homes because of what might happen.

Haiti was a disaster waiting to happen. An increasing number of events have given rise to similar disasters such as the tsunami and we can almost predict that what has happened in Haiti will happen again in a few years in some other part of the world. The public response has been excellent. The lord mayor has organised a collection in the past week for organisations such as Goal, Trócaire, Concern and the Red Cross and the response has been unbelievable. I have no doubt the public response will far exceed the national response, which has also been very good and I compliment those involved on how quickly it has been put together. I also welcome the way in which the disaster fund has been supported by the Irish Government.

There is a plethora of NGOs, some of which have had no previous contact with Haiti and that is part of the problem. Individual activities by different countries and by different organisations are well intentioned and the aid is pouring in but it lacks co-ordination. It lacks direction, focus and leadership and a centralised approach is needed. We must learn lessons from that because what has happened in Haiti will happen elsewhere before too long, as we knew that what happened when the tsunami struck five years ago would happen again.

The European Union is the largest single aid donor in the world and we are part of that organisation. Since the Lisbon treaty we have moved towards the European Union becoming an entity which is very much concerned with providing world leadership in humanitarian aid and attempting to end world poverty. We have established a High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy and are in the process of establishing a new external action service. We have a solidarity clause which commits each member state to offer mutual support if there is a natural disaster of this nature. We should expand that policy on a global basis. We act in conjunction with the United Nations and in the conference the EU will shortly hold on reconstruction the first item on the agenda should be the logistics of natural disaster rapid response co-ordination under a centralised national aid agency leadership. Some €4.5 billion has already been collected by a similar international meeting in Sharm el Sheikh, held a year ago for the reconstruction of Gaza, but because of the intransigence of the Israelis not a single penny has been spent. The European Union is the body to show the necessary leadership as outlined in the Lisbon treaty which we have now adopted.

I would like Ireland to press for a huge new initiative under the auspices of the European Union in regard to future disasters because such an initiative has been missing in regard to this tragedy, notwithstanding the enormous goodwill shown by discrete aid agencies around the world and the Irish public. Rarely has less than €20 been dropped into collection tins in Ireland to help the victims of the earthquake and €50 is the norm. It is a colossal contribution but we should ensure structures are in place to guarantee that a focused, co-ordinated leadership is given to such disasters in the future.

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