Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This is an opportune time to speak about how far we have come as a country since 2011, from a time when we had completely relinquished control of our nation's finances to today when we have regained control of our destiny. It is no coincidence that over the past seven years we have been fortunate to have been served by two Ministers for Finance with the talent and wisdom necessary to make the right decisions on our behalf.

Let us reflect for a moment on that tumultuous time in our nation's history. In 2011 our unemployment rate was just under 15%. We had 0.33 million people out of work. Our national borrowings were increasing by €7 million every day and our Government debt was rated just one notch above junk. Ireland's reputation as a safe place to invest and to conduct business was on the floor and 900 of our people were leaving our shores every week. Fast-forward just seven years to 2018 and even the most cynical observer would have to acknowledge that the Ireland of today is a vastly different place. Our unemployment rate is now at 5.4%, its lowest level of the last decade, and we continue to create almost 1,000 jobs every week with renewed international confidence in Ireland as a place in which to invest. Thankfully, 500 emigrants return to Ireland every week. As we focus today on the deeply responsible approach taken by the former Minister, Deputy Noonan, and the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, in managing our nation's finances, it is important to reflect on what our hard-earned additional resources can enable us to do.

As Minister of State with responsibility for international development, I strongly welcome the commitment in the budget to increasing Ireland's investment in our overseas development programme by €110 million next year. That is the largest such increase in over a decade. That commitment is a reflection of our Government's determination to walk the walk on our commitment to the 2030 agenda for sustainable development and our commitment to reach the UN target for development assistance of 0.7% of GNI by 2030. It is also a statement of intent consistent with the ambition outlined in Global Ireland about our place in the world and our responsibility to make a positive contribution to global affairs beyond this island. This ambition is a reflection of who we are as a people. It is also profoundly in our national interest. As a small country, an effective multilateral system is essential to our well-being and playing our part in a genuinely global effort to resolve challenges that simply do not recognise borders anymore is where we need to focus.

The values at the heart of Ireland's development policy are deeply rooted in our own country's history of famine and migration and our determination to respond in a spirit of solidarity and respect to the poverty of others. That draws on the historical, political and social experience of our people and how we understand the challenges of poverty, conflict, injustice and migration. Our history also inspires us to support other countries in empowering their young people through education. Our aim in Irish Aid is to reach the most vulnerable and neglected through education and to positively affect their lives. In so doing, in enabling everyone to maximise their potential, we all benefit. It is through education that human genius is unlocked and that people are enabled to live longer and more productive lives. Every one of us in this Chamber knows it has been the experience of the Ireland of our lifetime. It is only 50 years since free secondary education was introduced through the visionary work and determination of Donogh O'Malley. In that time we have changed from a nation which exported its young people, uninformed and ill-prepared, to a country which now has one of the highest levels of third-level education in Europe. It is a country that has a highly skilled and adaptable workforce and which is able to afford our citizens a standard of living that our grandparents would never even have dreamed of and an inclusive education. Access to education was the key to that transformation. Inspired by our own experience of the transformational power of education, we recently doubled our contribution to the Global Partnership for Education, contributing €25 million between now and 2020. We are working with the Global Partnership for Education to ensure that 264 million children who are left out of school are not left behind. There is a particular focus on girls, who are disproportionately neglected in that regard.

Let us be clear, investing in development co-operation is not just an exercise in altruism, it is also an investment in our global neighbourhood. It is about our safety and well-being. It is about containing disease and helping to respond to conflict, displacement and national disaster. It is about exporting support for a rules-based international order. It is about helping our friends to turn their demographic challenges into opportunities and dividends and into building their economies and in turn creating opportunities in which we will most definitely share in the future.

Yesterday the Minister, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, made that deeply symbolic commitment of additional funds to our overseas development programme. That commitment sets us on a definite path to success in terms of building on the trusted global partnerships we have nurtured for decades and in forging new ones for the future. It was a good day for Ireland.

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