Mary Upton (Dublin South Central, Labour)
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Question 113: To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs his views on the request of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs for debt cancellation to Haiti; if he has communicated his support to the Department for Finance; and if he is concerned at the absence of debt cancellation from the agenda of the most recent board meeting of the International Monetary Fund. [7152/10]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Government shares the concern of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs that the tragic earthquake of 12 January should not lead to further indebtedness for Haiti, and that vital resources should not be diverted from the response to the disaster. More broadly, the Government remains strongly committed to international efforts to cancel or ease the debt burden on developing countries. In Ireland's case, of course, all of our development assistance is provided in the form of grants and not loans.

Last year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and other international financial institutions delivered a total of $1.2 billion in debt relief to Haiti through the main multilateral debt relief initiatives. At the end of 2009, Haiti's total multilateral debt stood at $ 677 million. In addition, $ 507 million was owed to bilateral creditors, primarily Venezuela and Taiwan.

Following the earthquake, the IMF Executive Board discussed the situation in Haiti at its meeting on 27 January. It decided to augment its existing Extended Credit Facility to Haiti, which stood at $165 million at the end of 2009, by an additional $102 million. This helped provide the Government of Haiti with urgently needed cash resources to acquire emergency imports, support essential services, and make cash available to banks and transfer houses. This emergency assistance is interest-free, with repayments not due for just over five years. Following the meeting on 27 January, the IMF Managing Director gave a commitment that the Fund would now work for the deletion of all of Haiti's debt, including the IMF emergency loan.

I warmly welcome the statement by the G7 Finance Ministers at their meeting in Canada on 6 February that they will cancel the remaining bilateral debt owed by Haiti to G7 countries and work towards the cancellation of Haiti's remaining multilateral debt.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Finance are in contact in relation to the handling of Haiti's remaining debt and are monitoring developments at the IMF in coordination with our constituency at the Fund, which is led by Canada. I also expect that the issue of Haiti's debt will be discussed at the donor conference on the reconstruction of Haiti this spring, at which Ireland will participate.