Lest the Minister of State argues that this is all slow progress and whatever, I draw attention to the case of Zambia which received a debt cancellation through the highly indebted poor countries, HIPC, process and through the multilateral debt relief process. However, it is interesting that faced with the choice between using the receipts for the gold that it sold, the IMF decided to put it into its low-interest fund rather than relieving or cancelling the debt even of a country like Zambia whose ratio of debt repayment to GDP is 300%. These are moral choices. I am not blaming the Minister of State but I am saying that the types of issues I raise are ones that one would expect to be raised by the spokesperson for Ireland at the governance talks.

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