Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I take this opportunity to acknowledge what Ireland achieved during its Presidency of the EU. I also acknowledge the hard work, commitment and dedication of everyone from ministerial level down through the various staff levels.

I am a member of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade and I chair the Irish section of the Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa, AWEPA. In that context, I wish to focus on a number of areas. Our priorities for our Presidency were stability, jobs and growth, enlargement, engaging with our global partners and development.

I particularly want to focus on the priorities involving the developing world and the global south. I acknowledge the support of the Irish Government and Irish Aid for the recent AWEPA conference entitled "Hope, Hunger and Land", which President Michael D. Higgins opened in the Royal Hospital. It coincided with the end of our Presidency. It was attended by parliamentarians from Africa, Ireland and the EU and by many representatives from NGOs and the development community. The issues that emerged from that conference and a conference in May on nutrition and climate justice have shown areas where Ireland has been a leader, where it has been very productive and where achievements have been made, but they also highlight ways to move forward that I hope Lithuania will continue. Both conferences highlighted how we live in a world of gross inequalities. Some of the issues raised and the speeches made by the people at those conferences really brought that home. On the area of hunger, they focused on the vulnerabilities of small farmers, fishermen, women and children. We are living in a world where 870 million people go hungry and 6 million children die from malnutrition yearly. I know the Minister of State had an opportunity to visit one of those countries and he has seen this at first hand. I know he was conscious of the contrast between his own children and the children he met on that journey.

A certain few corporations completely dominate areas such as grain, tea, bananas and confectionary with the result that they control prices. It is sad to know that 10% of deaths in the developing world are due to armed conflict, but 90% of deaths are due to chronic lack of access to food. There is a very serious immorality when the poor in the developing world are paying for the central heating in the developed world.

Whenever I have the opportunity at the foreign affairs committee and in parliamentary questions to the Minister I have supported calls for tax justice. I hope this is an area that Lithuania will continue to support. I call for scrutiny of double taxation agreements, the country by county auditing, automatic sharing of tax information between countries and an end to the tax haven secrecy curtailing profit shifting and tax dodging by multinationals especially in poor countries. Various reports and statistics show that developing countries lose $160 billion every year due to unscrupulous multinational companies dodging tax. I know there are other reasons for this such as unscrupulous practices in accountancy and also where there is weak government, weak institutions and corruption. They also play a part in that. I note the calls from NGOs like Trócaire, the Debt and Development Coalition, Christian Aid and Action Aid on this to ensure that the citizens in the developing countries can hold their governments and businesses to account on these matters in order that natural resources in those countries benefit the whole country.

Considerable progress has been made and Ireland played a significant role in securing the signing into law of the extractive and forestry industries new payment disclosure requirements. Ireland also oversaw agreement on full country by country reporting for the banking sector. I hope it will be a first priority of the Lithuanian Presidency, with Irish support, to take on the other sectors and include sectors such as transportation or exports, as tax avoidance and corruption were not only confined to the extractive industries.

I want to make a few points on bio-fuels. Ireland is taking one particular line which I believe has to be adopted but I am not sure if Lithuania will make this a priority. In 2009, the renewable energy directive set a binding target on all member states to achieve at least 10% renewable energy in transport by 2020. The Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, in a reply to a question said that the primary means for most, if not all, member states of meeting this target will be by increased use of bio-fuels. He also said in a reply to a question I submitted that he shares the concerns that bio-fuel production, unless properly regulated, can have a negative impact on food production and on food prices. In October 2012, the European Commission, following a number of studies, published a proposal to amend the directive and the Commission included a proposal that the 10% quota would be reduced to 5%. I have discussed this with the Minister and he is also supportive of this because bio-fuels mean higher food prices. There is the irony that a renewable energy directive which has the grand ideal of working to combat climate change can have a negative effect. We know that the bio-fuel industry is driving land grabbing in Africa. One of the NGOs told us that 40 million hectares of African land have been taken for bio-fuels since 2000, leading to land displacement and evictions, which in turn cause hunger and water shortages. The Minister of State, Deputy Costello, has said that countries, particularly in eastern Europe, would see any change to the 10% quota as interfering with their industrial status. We devote 20% of overseas development aid to tackling hunger so we cannot give aid to alleviate hunger with one hand and take it back with the other on the energy issue. I hope that Lithuania will put this on its agenda as one of the priorities of its Presidency.

Deputy Crowe, myself and others at a meeting of the foreign affairs committee earlier today brought up the fact that there has been so much failure when it comes to Syria. How many more people have to die? How many more people have to go into the refugee camps where the conditions are appalling? A delegation from our committee, of which I was not a part, visited one of the camps in Jordan. We have heard reports of appalling abuses within the camps. We have learned of a smuggling network, of brothels being set up and of the lack of education for children. These are people who are leaving Syria daily. We know the numbers - almost 100,000 people have been killed already. We know that chemical weapons and scud missiles are being used. We know that people want a political solution but it is not happening. One wonders who is speaking to Mr. Assad about this. If there is going to be a military solution, what will happen to the populations who have been fighting him to date? Given the number of people who are calling for a political solution in Syria, the fighting cannot be allowed to continue. Mr. Guterres described Syria today as another Rwanda. Somebody else described it as having five Srebenicas there. It has been just allowed to continue.

It is very reminiscent of what happened the Palestinian people. We know the mistakes that were made there and the way in which they were completely displaced from their land. They were put into refugee camps, and some of these camps were subject to appalling brutality. There is another serious humanitarian, political and moral issue in Syria.

The Minister was very positive about transformation coming in Burma but serious human rights issues arise for the Rohingya people, and that issue is not being addressed. I hope that Lithuania might take on board some of the issues on which Ireland has been working, although without much success in some areas but it has highlighted them.

I want to make two further points. First, in the action plan on human rights that Ireland worked on, adopted by the EU Council in June 2012, there was a guideline on the promotion and protection of human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender intersex people. It was adopted at the final Foreign Affairs Council of the Irish Presidency but serious issues arise in Lithuania for people who are gay, bisexual or transgender because 61% of that community suffer from discrimination and harassment. It has the highest rate of hostility towards lesbian and gay people among the 27 EU member states. They are discriminated against when looking for work, in education, in health care and in social security. They face attacks and threats of violence. Lithuania must fulfil the principle of non-discrimination, including on grounds of sexual orientation, as in the EU Convention on Human Rights.

Second, the Minister of State, Deputy Costello, and the Tánaiste, Deputy Gilmore, are aware that a group of Members, both cross-party and Independents, are working on prisoner rights issues in the North of Ireland. As Deputy Crowe said, one of those people is Michael Campbell. Regardless of the crime for which he is in jail. it is about his human rights issues, and it is happening in Lithuania. The appeal was caused by the director of public prosecutions in Lithuania who wanted to try to increase the sentence. That is fair enough if this man is deserving of that sentence, but it must be done in a humane way and the situation in Lithuania for prisoners is far from humane. That has been highlighted by the Council of Europe's committee for the prevention of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment. I will not detail what we have been told about the conditions in both prisons but it is a challenge to the Lithuanian authorities taking up the Presidency to address this issue.

It is a momentous occasion for Lithuania. We wish it well. It has had a very tragic, sad history which it has come out of and one would hope its experiences would make it sympathetic and empathetic when it comes to human rights.

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