Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The future of Africa is central to the future of the planet. As Africa, hopefully, enters a period of renaissance continent-wide, we must interrogate what this Bill proposes to do for, and in partnership with, it. Will it represent a positive development in Ireland's relationship with Africa or will it turn our development co-operation programme and Irish Aid into a more exploitative relationship with the continent? Rather than the people, the environment and the ecosystems of Africa benefiting, will it mark a milestone where our relationship with Africa will become a tied aid only relationship in which, as donors, to use an old-fashioned term, or contributors, we will seek to tie our development support to a crudely exploitative model of the type with which Africa is all too familiar? Ireland was never a colonial power as many of our European neighbours were. Reading the list of European countries involved with the development bank, one sees that more than 90% of them were once colonial powers. Although Ireland does not have that history - far from it - we must be fully aware of the appalling cruelty and disaster visited on Africa by European and other colonial powers down through the centuries.

Great African civilisations in places such as Zimbabwe that date back thousands of years lie in ruins because of the exploitation, greed, death and killing in Africa.

Can we think about the legacy of the slave trade on Africa and its impact right up to this day? Can we also consider the horrible legacy of the slave trade, which is racism? Even though the experiences of people coming from Africa to live in Ireland have been mostly positive, we are not entirely free from that. Rather than just turning business people away from any consideration of all the negative things that have happened to Africa, I want to hear the Minister of State say that we can use the Bill as an opportunity to face into these legacy issues, regarding which we also must interrogate ourselves. This is not a pat on the back for Ireland. The sums involved are small and we have not reached our development pledge of 0.7% of GDP to be spent on development projects. This is the context in which we debate the Bill.

We need to be assured that the African Development Bank is not helping vultures and jackals in the way one can see them in the Serengeti by stripping the continent bare as happened in history and leaving the bleached bones to lie there. We need reassurance and some commentary on how this connection with the bank, which was founded in the heady days of liberation and independence of the 1960s, will change for the better. I believe it was Harold Macmillan who spoke of the "wind of change" blowing through the continent when he visited Africa. Yet, that speech was followed by the horrible decades of apartheid, especially in South Africa. I speak as a former secretary of the anti-apartheid movement in Ireland, and I speak as a former Minister of State with responsibility for ODA. Earlier in my life, I also worked in Tanzania in east Africa. When I became a Minister, I did a lot of work in the aftermath of the genocide. Ireland needs to be clear eyed about what it is we intend to achieve with this modest couple of million euro a year. It is an important but modest amount.

Africa is beautiful, immense and incredibly wealthy in culture, natural resources and people. We have to find a language and framework that says we will assist that and not simply exploit it. I am worried at the reference to this connection being just about trade rather than development. A cornerstone of Ireland's development programme has been that it is not a tied aid programme. I want to hear from the Minister of State, Deputy D'Arcy, that he is not arbitrarily changing the policy now for short-term gain, be it to Ireland or to Africa.

We are aware of what happened in Africa's history. Ireland cannot, and should not, turn a blind eye. I refer to some of the areas that are referred to in the Department's papers and in the objectives of the bank. We specifically want to know about the people-centred development, which is about eliminating poverty and developing a positive economic programme. It is for the Minister of State to show us how this will be achieved by Ireland joining the African Development Bank, how it will lead to less exploitation and not more, and how it will empower and provide for African women and children who tend to be at the bottom of the pile when it comes to economic development.

I say all of this in the context of Ireland having signed up to the UN development goals. They have had a lot of success but there is a great deal of corruption in Africa. Corruption is the modern day problem of Africa that holds it back. Even countries such as South Africa have incredible experience of appalling corruption. Development banks and bankers are sharp people. They can persuade entire countries that a dam here or a river there is in the interests of economic growth but they may move many people away from their traditional lands, which may not be in the interests of a sustainable environment. These issues are difficult and it is difficult to know the right answers to them, but instead of patting ourselves on the back, we should seek to interrogate this. Many people in Ireland have been, and currently are, involved in development in a positive way. We should take many of those people as our models, as opposed to the bankers in the sharp suits. Will there be a reference to ensuring that the IFSC does not develop potential for money laundering such as robbing of assets from poor countries and empowering, in some cases, dictators? Has the Department thought about this and how it might be prevented? What will Ireland's approach be to the endemic problem of corruption in Africa, or are we simply just not going to talk about it? Wherever one goes in Africa, notwithstanding great economic, educational and other developments, corruption is so incredibly pervasive that at times it would make a person despair. It is at the cost of poor people and rural people. It is also at the cost of the drugs they do not have in the health services to cure simple diseases such as malaria and of not having fair trade. Many restaurants and coffee shops in Ireland are ambassadors for fair trade. The restaurants and the bars in the Houses of the Oireachtas largely buy Fair Trade products. This is positive co-operation that will help people and empower them to grow.

There are very good models such as those developed by Bóthar and many branches of the Irish Farmers' Association to help African farmers to improve the breeding of livestock and to provide livestock. These are small businesses and, in many cases, small farms. Is this the model we will choose to assist with business development?

I also want to know from Fine Gael if this will be about Fine Gael businessmen going to African financial partners with Government accreditation or will the party take its courage in its hands and support a financial transactions tax? Africa generates a vast volume of the mineral wealth in the world but it only secures a fraction of that wealth in return for its countries.

I am not saying I expect the Minister of State to be able to provide any of these solutions. I want him to question how our programme might go about beginning to do that in line with current economic developments. I want to ask about heavily indebted poor countries, HIPC, and debt forgiveness for many countries. We know a lot about debt forgiveness in Ireland because we do not get it for people who are very often at the end of their tether in terms of trying to meet mortgage commitments and hold on to their family homes. We know about vulture funds and what they have done since they came to Ireland. I want to know if we can apply the framework of some of the experiences and difficulties we had during the crash, when lots of people lost their employment and huge amounts of whatever wealth they had managed to build up. Out of that learning may come programmes that are both modern and relevant to how we might have a relationship with African countries.

As Nelson Mandela said, we know that the key development tool is education. Will co-operation in terms of education be an appropriate area for development and investment? In particular, what is badly needed in Africa is both apprenticeship training and third level education. I also refer to investment in drugs, for instance to treat malaria, a disease that kills many people and reduces the life capacity of millions right throughout the African continent. We have big pharma all over Ireland. Will we lend some of our expertise to try to get rid of the scourge of treatable diseases like malaria? We have a small NGO here called Engineers without Borders, founded in Ireland by engineers from DIT in particular. Students from all over Ireland take part in projects at third level to look at how to improve water quality, sanitation and conservation in terms of what is happening as a result of climate change. These are all small business-type developments that often have enormous consequences for improving people's quality of life. Has that been given consideration? On agriculture, I am sure the Minister of State is aware that most farmers in Africa are women and most farm assistants in Africa are children. Anything that seriously improves the lives of farmers and children living on small family farms will certainly get my support.

We really have not heard anything about the vision behind this Bill. Are we just signing up to this as something the Department of Finance, the officials and the Minister of the day can be involved in or is there some vision that is ethical, empowering and constructive in terms ecology and good quality growth that helps people's lives? If the Minister of State can answer these questions I do not think I would have any difficulty in supporting the Bill but I do want to hear the answers.

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