Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will arrange for my Department to circulate a brief paper on the figure for hunger and lack of nutrition. I was drawing a distinction between going to bed hungry and nutrition, but we can circulate information on it.

It is important for us to remember that our aid programme is the right thing to do. It fits in with our values as a people but it is also opening up doors and opportunities for us. Let us consider what is now happening in Africa. Seven of the ten fastest-growing economies in the world are in Africa and our record of aid in that continent is now enabling us to open up trade opportunities in those countries. That is the reason we developed the Africa strategy, which is examining the major potential of Africa from a trade point of view. One of the initiatives we took this year, for example, was undertaken jointly my Department and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, and I worked with the Minister, Deputy Coveney. We have now introduced a programme which is operating in Kenya and Tanzania involving the private food sector here. It is exploring opportunities for developments in the agrifood sectors in Kenya and Tanzania.

With regard to where this is going, our aid programme is a generous expression of our assistance to African countries and other poor countries, but in many cases we are now moving from aid to trade. Regarding the potential in terms of food, natural resources, education and the development of services, Africa is growing rapidly economically and our presence there through our aid programme is opening up opportunities for trade and investment, as well as opening doors for Irish companies to develop their trade with Africa. That is giving rise to much new economic potential. People who question, from a selfish point of view, whether we should be providing aid and the amount of aid we should be providing should consider its potential to open doors in terms of trade and think in the longer term rather than thinking only as far as the next budget or the budget after that.

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