Anthony Lawlor (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Like previous speakers, I welcome the Bill. I have a couple of queries regarding Irish Aid. Will the 0.7% be included in the current budget? Will the Minister of State identify from where the funding for our membership of the organisation and for the various payments to be made to it over the eight years in the context of our full subscription will come?

There is one thing that always makes me nervous about vehicles of the sort proposed in the legislation. The Bill digest states, "the overall objective and purpose of the Bank Group is to contribute to the sustainable economic development and social progress of its regional (African) members individually and jointly." One often wonders whether an analysis has been done since the bank was established in 1962 as to whether this objective has been achieved or as to whether it is still one of the bank's objectives. As far as many people are concerned, it has not achieved this objective.

I have a question about the bank and about those to whom it lends. I was in Benin and saw a small credit union being set up. I was fascinated by how whatever money was available was being lent at a very basic level. It was all being lent to women who were operating within their own co-operative and lending money to one another. The money was being used to set up small sustainable industries. Money raised was used to educate their children. To my mind, that is a very sustainable way of doing things. I get concerned about big banks coming in and about whether they look at the sustainability of what they are trying to achieve. Is there an opportunity for a farmer, either male or female, to access this to add value to his or her product? Is funding available for small groups in communities to create their own industries so that they can send their children to school for further education? That would be sustainable in the long term.

I have a concern that governments will end up deciding where the funding is going. As we have seen in our own Irish Aid budget, when money is allocated to the general budget, there can be difficulties in the context of accountability. Do we know it is going where it is supposed to be going? I have always worked on trying to get African parliamentarians to discover where the money actually goes in their countries. They find it extremely difficult to do so.Do African parliamentarians have access to the kind of scrutiny we have here to enable them to follow the money trail when they are examining where the money from the African Development Bank is going? I suggest we should look at supporting an equivalent body to our own Committee of Public Accounts in African Parliaments to enable them to follow the money trail when money is being borrowed for public purposes. The idea of providing sustainable sources of funding for African states is very important. I believe the initial cost is small in comparison with the call. Since 1962, there has never been a call on the funds that states have to provide. I am disappointed that more countries are not involved in the African Development Bank. We do not see countries in eastern Europe-----