Déirdre de Búrca (Green Party)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I am pleased to have an opportunity to discuss the report of the Hunger Task Force.Other Members have spoken eloquently before me, so it is difficult to find the right words to describe the sense of hopelessness out there. Even in the 21st century, we see examples of chronic hunger and chronic food insecurity in parts of the world, specifically sub-Saharan Africa. This task force report is a welcome indicator of the fact that the international community is determined to try to tackle this seemingly intractable problem in a coherent, planned and systematic way.

It is important to look at the statistics behind the report which addresses global hunger. Around 860 million people in the world are undernourished and almost 30% of children under five are underweight. There is a huge challenge and luckily, Ireland has taken a positive global leadership role. None the less, our progress towards achieving the targets we have set ourselves under the millennium development goals are no cause for celebration. It is to be hoped that the approaching budget will not see a significant reversal of the steady progress we have made towards meeting our targets for 2015.

Ireland already provides a high level of support for agricultural development and research and attempts to respond to food crises in many parts of the world through the Irish Aid programme. The hunger task force will make a further contribution by helping to prioritise the work of Irish Aid. The hunger task force was called for in 2006 as part of a White Paper on Irish Aid, and it was established in 2007 to look at the particular contribution that Ireland could make in tackling the root causes of food insecurity, especially in Africa. The composition of the task force is made up of both national and international experts in the area of hunger and food security.

The report sets out a number of recommendations which include increasing agricultural productivity, especially among the women who make up 80% of African farmers, preventing maternal and infant malnutrition, as well as prioritising the fight against hunger at a national and international level. The remarks made by the Taoiseach at the meeting of the UN on 25 September were very telling. He said it is unthinkable and unacceptable that in this century, as we pride ourselves on huge technological advances and the development on an interlinked global community, hunger is still the waking reality for a least 860 million people, and that number continues to rise. The report makes it clear that Ireland and Irish Aid needs to do a lot more. It certainly will not be achieved overnight, but the report sends a clear and ambitious roadmap for our future engagement with hunger reduction.

The report recommends that at a national level, Ireland needs to declare eradication of hunger as a cornerstone of its development aid programme and as key component of its foreign policy. We need to put this at the heart of our foreign policy and to use our position within the EU to ensure the eradication of hunger should also form a part of the common foreign and security policy of the EU. The report also recommends that Ireland take a strong leadership and advocacy role internationally to ensure the hunger target of the millennium development goals is reached and, if possible, exceeded. I think we will set an example. The decisions we make on the forthcoming budget next week will send an important signal to EU member states and others as to how serious we are about this leadership inadequacy role. There has been a serious economic downturn and the budget will be difficult, but it is to be hoped that we show our resolve in maintaining the progress we have made to date in working towards achieving our own targets.

Other recommendations include working towards an indicative target of 20% of our budget development aid to actions to alleviate and eradicate hunger. This target is to be achieved on a phased basis by 2012 in the context of Ireland's commitment to reach the target of 0.7% of gross national income by that date. Senators have mentioned the recommendation to appoint a special envoy for hunger to ensure the overall recommendations of the report are implemented. The special envoy would engage with the Government and with relevant non-governmental organisations in Ireland and could represent Ireland in important international fora.

There are several recommendations at an international level, and Ireland should be using its influence to promote them. The first recommendation is to support reform of the international architecture to tackle world hunger and promote coherence across the UN agencies and the entire international system. When we look at different international agencies, their objectives and the work they do often seem to be contradictory, including within the UN. Therefore, we need to see greater coherence.

The report also recommends promoting robust international mechanisms to ensure governments in developing and developed countries honour their commitments and prioritise the reduction of hunger and malnutrition in their national development strategies and assistance programmes. One possible suggestion put forward by some members of the task force would be for the Secretary General of the United Nations to appoint a UN commissioner for hunger, and establish under that commissioner an audit body that would report on individual countries' actions in addressing global hunger, with the authority to hold governments to account where their actions are inadequate.

Unless we want to remain at the level of rhetoric and aspiration, we need to put mechanisms such as this in place. An office such as the UN commissioner for hunger would focus energy and attention on the issues at hand. We also need the audit body because despite the best intentions of individual countries, many other issues distract them from the targets they have set. The idea that this body would hold governments to account is something that would deliver results.

The report also recommends the possible establishment of a global fund designed to deal with smalholder agriculture and long-term nutrition, which would operate in a manner consistent with existing structures. Global funds have been mentioned in other contexts, and the Tobin tax has been proposed on currency speculation in the international financial markets. I think it is especially relevant at a time when we are seeing the consequences of reckless behaviour within those markets. It has been suggested that the proceeds from the Tobin tax could be used to establish a global fund which could be used to fund the kind of projects mentioned in the report.

The Green Party welcomes the publication of the report and its recommendations. We hope the Government will live up to the ambition and aspirations set out in the report and that when we discuss this next year, we will be able to say that Ireland is playing its part in tackling the serious challenge of global hunger.