Dan Neville (Limerick, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to raise this issue and thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to do so. I wish to discuss the role of Irish overseas aid in education because it is an area that can be marginalised during times of international recession. It is ten years since the international community including Ireland adopted the millennium development goal of education for all in the Third World. The millennium development goals recognise explicitly the interdependence between growth, poverty reduction and sustainable development. The millennium development goals commit to the achievement of universal primary education and underpins education for all in the Third World.

Education is the key to breaking the poverty cycle in the Third World. A child born to a literate mother is 50% more likely to survive past the age of five years. A single year of primary school increases the wages people earn later in life by 5% to 15% for boys and even more for girls. No country has ever achieved continuous and rapid economic growth without first having at least 40% of its adults able to read and write. Gains in women's education made the most significant difference in reducing malnutrition, outperforming a simple increase in the availability of food. Women with six or more years of education are more likely to seek prenatal care, assisted childbirth and postnatal care, reducing the risk of maternal and child mortality and illness in the Third World.

It is easy to lose sight of what is at stake with regard to education. Ultimately, the world economy will recover from the global recession we are experiencing, but the crisis could create a lost generation of children in the world's poorest countries, whose life chances will have been jeopardised by a failure to protect their right to education. Ireland can and must play its part in averting this imminent lost generation. Our international aid policy must place education as the cohesive core behind all our aid priorities.

Our aid policy should reflect a number core principles, which I will now outline. Education is a fundamental human right with each state being the primary provider of education and it should be supported to provide quality education for all in the Third World. Education must be comprehensive and the education for all goals must be promoted as a holistic education policy. The focus on achieving universal primary education must be complemented by an approach which supports education for all across the age spectrum. Civil society is crucial to educational progress and it must be supported to promote democratic institutions and to hold governments to account for policy decisions, including the financing of education and the formulation of education policy. I saw the difficulties civil society has in influencing the situation in Africa during my recent visit to Ethiopia with the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade. Education for all must mean "all". Discrimination against girls and women in education continues to persist in the Third World. Children with disabilities constitute one third of all out-of-school children.

Ireland must ensure its aid policy reflects the core importance of education to achieving all other development goals. In particular, education is the key to poverty reduction. Ireland must meet its revised commitment of 0.7% of GDP by 2015 and, in particular, must commit at least 8% of overseas development aid to basic education. Will the Minister of State, Deputy Costello, comment on the Government's position on these targets? Irish Aid must provide clear and transparent figures to show annual funding of the education for all goals and what percentage this is of the larger overseas development aid budget.

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