Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In the programme for Government three years ago we expressed our determination to restore Ireland's standing as a respected and influential member of the European Union and as part of the wider international community. We also recognised the importance of our embassy network and committed to use that resource to repair our reputation overseas. The results of our work are clear. We have regained access to international bond markets and the confidence of international investors. Export levels are higher than they were before the economic crisis.

Net job creation from inward investment and our small and medium-sized exporting companies was higher in 2013 than it had been for ten years. Ireland is now ranked by Forbesmagazine as the best country in the world for business. Much of this has been achieved owing to a renewed emphasis on economic diplomacy, using every opportunity to highlight Ireland's economic strengths and potential to international audiences. Ireland's embassy network has been working tirelessly to advance the Government's economic objectives and support Irish jobs. In 2013 alone our embassies organised 734 engagements to facilitate trade and investment, undertook engagements with 1,152 representatives of international media to promote Ireland's profile and global reputation and ensured the presentation of key economic messages about Ireland in articles and interviews in the international media, reaching an audience of more than 53 million people. Embassies also supported 28 ministerial-led trade missions and trade events during 2013, securing significant trade deals and investment for Ireland. These included a major trade mission to South Africa and Nigeria which I led, during which deals expected to be worth over €7 million to Irish companies were secured.

In the programme for Government we committed to implementing the Government's trade, tourism and investment strategy. My Department has recently completed a short, focused review of the strategy to ensure the resources of the State, including the embassy network and State agencies, are positioned to take full advantage of new opportunities in key emerging markets and keep delivering in our established markets. The programme for Government also committed us to develop better trade relationships and stronger cultural and diplomatic links with emerging economies. The five new embassies and three new consulates general recently announced will provide a platform for the further promotion of Irish exports, investment, tourism and education in key locations across South-East Asia, Europe, the Americas and Africa. As part of this expansion of our embassy network, we are reopening an embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. This will support Ireland's aid programme and help to accelerate the planned transition from "aid to trade" in Africa.

Irish people have always had a vision for the sort of world we want to be part of, an equitable, just and sustainable world where there are opportunities for all to live their lives free from hunger, fear, violence and discrimination and where all people have the right to peace and security, education, health, decent work and democratic and accountable government. The Government's new international development policy - One World One Future - responds to this vision of a sustainable and just world. It focuses particularly on the poorest countries and communities in sub-Saharan Africa and sets out three goals: reduced hunger and stronger resilience; sustainable development and inclusive economic growth; and better governance, human rights and accountability.

The Irish Aid programme is not some kind of add-on to Irish foreign policy but central to it. That is why the Government has worked hard since February 2011 to protect the overseas development aid budget to the maximum possible extent. I am not going to suggest it has not been reduced, as quite clearly it has. However, in the past three years the Government has managed to stabilise the ODA budget in order that, when economic circumstances allow, we will have solid foundations on which to begin again to move towards achieving the UN target of 0.7% of GNP. For the years 2011, 2012 and 2013, we provided overall budgets for development assistance of €657 million, €629 million and €622 million, respectively. For 2014, the Government has again managed to allocate almost €600 million in ODA. On current estimates, this should amount to some 0.43% of GNP. In current circumstances this represents a significant achievement, reflecting the commitment of the people to the fight to end extreme poverty and hunger.

Ireland has been engaged at a Government level in sub-Saharan Africa for 40 years. Today we have high quality programmes in nine key partner countries, involving bilateral funding this year of €155 million. This funding is aimed at reducing poverty and vulnerability and building state capacity. In the past two years I have visited a number of our key partner countries, including Mozambique, Uganda, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and seen at first hand how we are improving the lives of some of the poorest and most marginalised people in these countries. I also took the opportunity during these visits to explore ways in which Ireland could assist our African partners to grow their economies and exit from aid dependency. Many of these countries are succeeding in reaching some of the highest levels of economic growth in the world. While maintaining our strong poverty focus, we are responding to this changing context and working strategically with our partner countries to advance inclusive economic growth and sustainable development. The economic, trade and political objectives of the Department's Africa strategy - launched in 2011 - are complemented by initiatives to promote an enabling environment for business and investment such as support for business licensing and registration in Mozambique.

We have had to make some strategic and tough decisions in the past few years, including closing our representative office in Timor Leste. This year we will see the closure, after 40 years, of our mission in Lesotho. On the other hand, we are also seeing some new initiatives. A new embassy will be established in Kenya and we are also deepening our engagement in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Sierra Leone has become the newest of Ireland's key partner countries.

Irish Aid now spends and is committed to continue spending over 20% of its budget on activities that directly reduce hunger, delivering on the target set by Ireland's hunger task force in 2008. We support poor smallholder farmers to sustainably increase food production in Tanzania, Malawi, Ethiopia and Zambia. We particularly target women farmers who carry out a large portion of work on African farms but who rarely have equal access to land or services. Our programmes include investment in agricultural research, support for farmer training programmes, improving small farmers' access to high quality seeds and supporting farmers in diversifying to more nutritious crops. The Irish Aid programme also supports a wide range of nutrition programmes in our key partner countries, particularly focusing on pregnant women and infants to the age of two years.

Recognising the strong link between nutrition and health, we also prioritise access to adequate health care across the aid programme. Our support to the global fund to fight AIDS, TB and malaria has been particularly effective, with deaths associated with these diseases plummeting. Between 2002 and 2012, some 8.7 million lives were saved, with the global fund directly responsible for assisting 3.6 million people to receive anti-retroviral therapy for HIV infection and 9.3 million people to receive TB treatment and funding 270 million insecticide-treated anti-malaria bed nets. Despite these successes, global efforts in poverty reduction are increasingly being undermined by the devastating effects of climate change. To address this, we are working to ensure all of our programmes are designed with climate change in mind. To help developing countries to address the effects of climate change, Ireland pledged and met our commitment to provide fast start finance to help developing countries to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change.

Humanitarian relief is another vitally important aspect of Ireland's aid programme. The budget for Irish Aid's emergency humanitarian assistance fund for 2014 is €57.5 million. This enables us to provide flexible and timely funding for our UN and Irish NGO partners to deliver effective humanitarian assistance in response to clear and identified needs on the ground. Irish Aid also dedicates resources - close to €30 million this year - to emergency preparedness, recovery activities, peace building and a rapid response initiative which provides essential supplies and personnel to various hot spots throughout the world.

We will soon be entering the fourth year of one of the most appalling humanitarian emergencies the world has seen in decades. An estimated 140,000 Syrian people have died since the uprising began in March 2011, with over 2 million refugees in neighbouring countries. Irish humanitarian assistance will continue to be focused on meeting the needs of beleaguered populations both within Syria and in neighbouring countries. Irish Aid also pays particular attention to so-called "forgotten emergencies", or those situations where a crisis continues but no longer commands the attention of the world's media. For example, last week the Tánaiste and I announced €6.5 million in funding to support UN life-saving work in Sudan, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia, where the continuing deterioration of the humanitarian crisis is a cause of grave concern.

As we approach the deadline for achieving the millennium development goals in 2015, the international community has been ratcheting up its consideration of the shape of the post-2015 development framework. Our EU Presidency in the first half of 2013 came at a crucial stage. The post-2015 agenda was starting to dominate global development discussions and preparations were being made for the global review of the millennium development goals at the UN high level event in New York in September 2013. A key priority for Ireland's EU Presidency was to facilitate the development of a co-ordinated, coherent and credible EU position in advance of the UN special event.

In this we received full support from our EU partners at an informal meeting of EU Development Ministers which I chaired in Dublin in February 2013 and which saw the first substantive political level discussion in the European Union on the post-2015 framework.

In April 2013 the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, in conjunction with the Mary Robinson Foundation, Climate Justice, organised an international conference in Dublin Castle on the inter-linked themes of hunger, nutrition and the impact of climate change. The key messages from that conference have informed discussions, including within the European Union, on a successor framework to the millennium development goals. We continue to play an active role in these vitally important discussions, including through our membership of the open working group on sustainable development, on which we share a seat with Norway and Denmark.

Aid is not charity. It is not given as an act of benevolence by the wealthy to the less fortunate. It is much more than this. It involves putting our money where our mouth is, backing up our vision for the sort of world we want to be part of with the actions necessary to achieve this, recognising that the best way to defeat hunger is to overcome poverty, helping those countries and people that need a helping hand to begin to generate their own sustainable future, and investing in a better future for us all.

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