Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

Senator Bradford made a very telling point about who is leading the international war against poverty and AIDS. I thank and congratulate Senator Henry and her colleagues on putting forward this important motion in a way in which we can all unite around it rather than divide. I have always believed that overseas development assistance is important to our-self respect as a nation and an important dimension of our foreign policy. It was not irrelevant to our election to the Security Council.

At the end of the war Ireland sent aid to devastated countries in Europe, such as Germany and Austria, and this is still remembered. Dr. Garret FitzGerald deserves the credit for founding the bilateral aid programme in the mid-1970s. When we got into economic difficulties in the late 1980s, the question of scrapping it altogether was raised, but, fortunately, it continued, albeit on a minimalist basis. The Minister of State, Deputy Tom Kitt, is right when he says the turning point came when Mr. Albert Reynolds was Taoiseach. In the Bodenstown speech of October 1992 he signalled a change of direction. At that point our contribution was 0.166% of GNP, above only the United States of America which was at the bottom of the list. In the negotiations with the Labour Party leading to the setting up of the coalition Government both parties were clearly coming from the same direction. Deputy Kitt was the first Minister of State, under the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dick Spring, to revamp and build up the overseas aid programme. He did a very good job and it is greatly to his credit that he sought to return to the job of Minister of State with responsibility for overseas aid this time around.