Dominic Hannigan (Labour)

I am sure Members will join me in congratulating the makers of the Irish films "Hunger" and "Garage" on winning Evening Standard awards in London. It is a testament to the good work done by the Irish Film Board. At the moment, there is a level of disquiet among many members of the Irish film industry. I must declare my own interest here as I am involved in a television production company. The Government has not reappointed or confirmed the appointment of members of the Irish Film Board which it was meant to do in mid-January. As a result of this, the board cannot approve any grants or development funding for the production of films or television programmes. There is a concern that something is coming down the line. Can the Leader use his good office to find out what is going on and allay the concerns within the industry? Many people depend on the film industry for their livelihoods, which has been very beneficial to our own tourism industry.

We had an interesting debate here last night on the subject of human rights. I spoke about the proposed cuts to the overseas development aid budget. The impact on this will be severe. The Minister mentioned yesterday in the Dáil that 1 billion people go to bed hungry every night. It is very important that we do not cut our aid. We have done tremendous work in aid over recent years. Hans Zomer, the chief executive of Dóchas, stated that although aid is a very small percentage of our overall spend, 5% of all cuts proposed by the Taoiseach will come from the aid budget. Senator Boyle described this last night as unfortunate, but this is not the word used by the aid agencies. If we go ahead with these cuts, other governments will use it as an excuse to cut their own aid budgets. We need to show leadership here. We cannot sell out on our principles and on our commitments to the developing world. I ask the Leader and Senators on the Government side of the House to ask their Ministers to look again at these proposed cuts.