Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I have been an enthusiast for Fairtrade ever since it started in 1996. Then I was honoured to be asked to go on board the SV Estelle when it came to Dublin to promote Bewley's first Fairtrade coffee.

A certain ambiguity surrounds the term "fair trade". The Fairtrade movement, which spells it as one word, is the meaning that most people are more familiar with, given that it has operated mainly at the retail level. Fairtrade aims to create a situation in which the producers of certain goods in developing countries are paid a fair price for the work they put in. The resulting products are sold under the Fairtrade label in developed countries such as our own. The invitation to customers is to pay a premium price for these products in return for the assurance the original producers will get a better deal. This started out originally with coffee and has since extended to a broad range of other products. It has been notably successful in Ireland.

However, this is not the whole story of fair trade. The success of the Fairtrade initiative, which I applaud, tends to mask a much wider problem. The world trading system, in general, is systemically opposed to the notion of fair trading in agriculture between the developing countries and the developed world. This is the conundrum the World Trade Organisation, WTO, has been struggling to resolve for many years and what the present Doha round of trade talks are all about.

Put simply, the developed world — most notably Europe and America — operates a highly protectionist scheme in agriculture. To protect the narrow interests of its farmers, the developed world has tried to keep out produce from the developing world. Even worse, by flooding world markets with its surplus products at subsidised prices, it has depressed the market possibilities for the products of the developing world. Not only do we largely keep the developing world's products out of our markets, we also undermine their sales efforts in the rest of the world, including their home markets.

For anyone who regards all human beings as equal, this market behaviour is simply wrong. It is morally reprehensible and cannot be defended on any basis but pure national selfishness. I have said before this behaviour makes me ashamed to be an Irishman, a European, even a citizen of the developed world. How will we explain this to future generations? We are the evil-doers. Our policy should be to end this evil as quickly as possible.

It makes me especially sad that Ireland is among the most active players in the EU when it comes to this. We and the French are the unholy alliance driving EU policy on world trade. It is we who are trying to defend the indefensible.

It is particularly ironic that the same developed countries which are most actively protectionist when it comes to agriculture are also the most generous as development aid donors to the developing world. Despite this, it has been calculated on many occasions that the sum total of all our development aid is of less value to the developing countries than they would gain from a truly fair world trading system. "Trade, not aid" is a slogan that seeks to encapsulate this irony, and it does it very well. Trade, not aid, is what we should be aiming for.

Before the friends of Irish farming in this and the other House have another of their ritual apoplectic fits, I will point out that I am not speaking against the interests of farmers in pleading for a fair world trade deal. However, I believe farmers are our problem, or a European problem. We should not expect the developing world to bear the costs involved in looking after European farmers. In particular, we should not allow our farmers to dictate a morally reprehensible trade policy to the country and by extension to the whole of Europe.

The amount we spend on development aid, which in one way does Ireland considerable credit, is a mask for an overall trade policy which is nothing to be proud of. In fact, it is one of which we should be thoroughly ashamed. It saddens me that I am one of the few Oireachtas Members who is prepared to stand up and publicly acknowledge these truths. Equally, the success of the fair trade movement in Ireland — which, as I have said, I warmly applaud — should not blind us to the fact that in our overall trade policy we are effectively opponents, not supporters, of fair trade. It would be a tragedy if the many good people who deliberately buy Fairtrade products here in Ireland for the best possible reasons were fooled into thinking that our national policies share and reflect their views. Unfortunately, they do not.