Conor Lenihan (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

——being followed. We agree with the thrust of the Senator's comments about bringing people to Ireland to avail of the excellence on hand, but we prefer to deliver training locally because it can be expensive. Where appropriate, we try to seek out centres of excellence near or in the region in question.

We are proud to remain a strong funder of the UNFPA notwithstanding the criticism of that agency, none of which is based on evidence. Frequently, I receive letters from domestic and international groups on this subject stating that we fund all sorts of services, but that is not the case and the UNFPA does not carry out those services. For example, it does not support or fund the one child policy in China, a main focal point of the criticism we receive.

The UNFPA is a good agency and enjoys our total confidence in its work to date. It is central to the empowerment of women, gender issues generally and the provision of health, sexual and reproductive advice. I apologise to Senator Norris that we did not use the phrase "sexual and reproductive rights" in the White Paper, but we are not shy about using the word "sexual". The Senator knows that I mention sexual and reproductive rights in virtually every speech I make.

That certain donors, including the United States of America, have pared back funding for anti-AIDS programmes involving the use of condoms in some countries, such as Uganda, is of concern. We are not one of those donors. European donors and those of like mind to the Irish have made up the shortfall, but the Ugandans have accepted the other donors' conditional support and President Museveni is of an opinion that may not be shared by the international donor community. However, we are ploughing ahead in providing assistance in respect of sexual and reproductive rights undeterred by these changes in the landscape.

We are aware of the AIDS situation confronting homosexual males and the gay community in general. At an international conference I attended in London a few months ago, this issue arose in respect of Asia more than Africa. There has been a startling upsurge in AIDS cases in Asia because of economic growth and changing sexual practices, that is, people engaging in both homosexual and heterosexual sex but not informing others or being unaware of the health implications. This is a phenomenon in Asia rather than Africa where the focus is on an alarming increase in the number of women affected by the virus. Part of our programme will address this issue.

Our aid is predicated on social interventions in terms of health, education and hunger. The purpose of the hunger task force is to give an international and domestic lead. Hunger and food security issues and the deeper matter of rural development and making African farming practices more productive are of concern. We all know the history in question. For example, India's recent success was built on the green revolution of the 1950s when the nature of farming changed radically and more productivity was introduced to the methods. However, that has not been the African case and we are keen to determine how to improve the situation in terms of removing the dependence on external donors' assistance, be it food assistance or cash to buy food in local markets. We want to ensure that local and regional markets are strong enough for people to feed themselves, which is a basic requirement. It is a tragedy that, during the past 20 to 30 years, all international donors have ignored this subject.

Ireland hopes to take the lead through the creation of the hunger task force and I hope to make announcements regarding its terms of reference and chairman in the next month or two. We will announce the full membership at the beginning of 2007 with a mandate to report in six months and provide international leadership. Many people at the international level are hopeful that Ireland will take a necessary lead. Kofi Annan, who is facing into retirement, wants to address this matter because a green revolution has not occurred in Africa. As an African, he is keen to see international efforts focused in this regard.

We have doubled our spending to tackle AIDS to €100 million. Together with the 0.7% by 2012 target announced at the UN, this was one of the bravest decisions made by the Taoiseach in consultation with me. We did so owing to the issue's absorption capacity, that is, it can absorb money. Dr. Peter Piot of UNAIDS referred to an €8 billion shortfall in AIDS funding and it is in this respect that we want to provide leadership. Deputy Gormley was present for the announcement and stated in the Lower House that the considerable applause received by the Taoiseach made it heartwarming to be an Irish citizen. The applause came from across the board and may have been the most generous response to any statesman addressing the UN summit on AIDS. Ireland is taking the lead and people, including the Irish public, are watching how we deploy and spend money.

As we increase spending to meet the 0.7% target, we are approaching a medium-term review of our staffing requirements. We were fortunate to receive 20 extra staff as an immediate short-term response from the Department of Finance. In our last Estimates campaign, the Department saw the merits of my argument that we needed those people immediately. Some 14 of the 20 staff will be involved in the monitoring and evaluation of our growing programme directly and all of the 20 are present to meet the short-term need of ensuring that the programme is well evaluated and monitored and that taxpayers' money is spent appropriately.

The medium-term needs include the level of staffing required to meet the programme's significant expansions. This year's allocation is €732 million and, while the Estimates have yet to be published, Irish Aid's spending will probably exceed €800 million next year. By 2012, the allocation will be €1.5 billion, a considerable amount that must be deployed appropriately. I am anxious to do so in a planned fashion.

I accept contributors' statements that we must involve more people who are not involved in the Irish Aid programme, be they members of NGOs or volunteers. In the new year, we will announce a number of measures in respect of volunteering, a one-stop shop as it were, to advertise the opportunity for Irish people to volunteer. That is hugely important because for this first time in our history we in Ireland have the human capacity as well as the financial resources to make a difference and to play our own personnel into the picture in a much more meaningful way.

We are keen to do something in the third level sector, which is beloved of Senator Norris. We published a strategy document with the Higher Education Authority, which will be the central focal point for our efforts and our engagement with the third level sector. There has been the phenomenon in the past year or two of various universities and third level institutions coming to us with bold and imaginative proposals, all of them dependent on securing funding. We are anxious that whatever we do with the third level sector is coherent and properly organised and orchestrated in that sense. We have chosen the Higher Education Authority to be the focal point through which our engagement with the third level sector will occur. That does not stop institutions coming to us with their projects which may not fit into that.

This process will be twofold. At education level, we want to deepen public understanding, both academic and non-academic, of development issues. We are facing into a busy year, where we want to broaden the knowledge of what we are doing in Irish Aid, plus deepen the existing knowledge of development issues within our institutions and among the citizenry. A broadening and deepening of that knowledge will occur between now and 2012.

We will spend a great deal of money on public information campaigns, particularly on the White Paper and on where the money is being spent, and we will continue that in the new year and onwards to 2012. The information campaign will not be excessive, but at this point, given the amounts of money involved, the public should have a strong knowledge of how that money is being spent. We hope the debate will mature, as it has in other areas, where people get a full understanding of the issues that face us. It is easy for people to point to local needs such as in the health or education services in Ireland and ask why we are spending all this money abroad when we could spend it at home, but it is part of our international responsibility.

I will publish the human development index in the next month or so. The UN has asked us specifically to launch the index in regional terms. It brings good news for Ireland; we are climbing up the index again. We were eighth when it was published last year. Although I have not received the full report, I understand from the draft reports and indications that we are climbing even higher in wealth terms. With that wealth comes considerable responsibility, moral and otherwise, and we should not be afraid to step up to the line in the area of development. It is altruistic and charitable work. Irish aid is untied and therefore not given with a specific geopolitical or other immoral purpose. We are not an arms supplier. We do not see ourselves as a major player in any of those settings.

We are a moral voice in the world and the White Paper places development at the heart of our foreign policy. We are not delinking from foreign policy. Some other European countries have separated their development assistance programme into an agency type status but we do not favour that for Irish Aid. The name change was important because it reaffirms the role of the Department of Foreign Affairs. The White Paper, in substantial terms as opposed to the name change which is superficial at one level, puts development assistance at the heart of our foreign policy. Let us be straight and honest about the fact that Ireland is influential on the world stage because of its policy on development. People take a leaf from what we do. We listen and are listened to, and we are welcome in various settings across the world precisely because of what we do on the development aid side. The proof of that in a real sense was when my senior colleague, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Dermot Ahern, was chosen as the only developed country representative to be a UN envoy. That was unusual and is reflective of the strong role we play in development. It is recognised, by Kofi Annan and the UN generally that Ireland is a model UN member and we hope to continue as such. The area of development assistance is where we can prove to be the best and show the kind of leadership which is wanted by everybody in this House, irrespective of party political or no political affiliation. They want us to show a lead because, with Irish people, it comes not just from the heart, but from the head.

I am proud to be part of this expansion in the programme. I know it will enjoy cross-party support in the future. We need to rally around on a cross-party basis to support this. Notwithstanding our obvious wealth, when one considers the deficiencies in infrastructure and continuing pockets of poverty here, it would be easy and open to the unscrupulous political operator simply to state we should cut back on Irish aid and put it into domestic areas. It is important there is an all-party approach to ensure we, as parliamentarians and citizens of the world, can robustly make the point that aid can work and it is valuable for a country to spend large amounts of money in this area.