Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State and his positive report. I have a deep admiration for his commitment and leadership in this area. Listening to debates sometimes, everything appears to be a disaster. I have here an article reporting on the proceedings of the World Bank earlier this year, which shows that between 1981 and 2001 absolute poverty as defined by income of less than a dollar per day declined from 40% to 21%, while 500 million people in south and east Asia were helped out of poverty by economic growth. Admittedly, Africa has gone backwards, as Senators noted. I have great respect for the achievements of South Africa, notwithstanding the difficulties caused by AIDS.

We should consider the issue of providing development aid to countries involved in peace processes because we have an extra contribution to make in that regard. I have referred on previous occasions to Sri Lanka and the difficult position in which it finds itself.

Ireland has risen from a very low to a relatively high position in terms of development aid contributions. Having substantially overcome our economic difficulties of recent years, it is important that we honour the commitment made by the Taoiseach to increase our development aid to 0.7% of gross domestic product. We enjoy immense respect for the achievements of our economy and the relative success of our peace process, despite its problems and we should add to this respect by joining the leading development aid donors. I say this despite being finance spokesperson for the Fianna Fáil Party in the Chamber. While this objective is important, development aid must be directed and spent in ways which minimise the possibility of abuse referred to by Senators.