Seanad debates
Wednesday, 27 November 2002
Overseas Development Aid: Motion.
The Ireland Aid review, a very valuable document, the guts of which, I am glad to say, were incorporated into the Fianna Fáil manifesto and An Agreed Programme for Government, refers to an Asian country. I was in Sri Lanka in February this year, mainly because a peace process has been started there. A terrible conflict took place in which 60,000 died. It is an island much the same size as Ireland, but with a much larger population. Partly because of the similarity of the political problem, it would greatly benefit from aid. It is economically wrecked and reasonably self-contained because it is an island. I ask the Minister of State to look very closely at it as a possible candidate to which we could extend our aid programme.
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