Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 163: To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs the full extent of debt written off by the International Monetary Fund and or developed countries in respect of the poorer countries in the past ten years; the precise degree to which this corresponds with commitments entered into; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21283/10]

Peter Power (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)
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In 2005, the leaders of the G8 countries, at their Summit in Gleneagles, agreed to establish the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI), with a focus on the cancellation of the heavy debt burden on developing countries. It was intended to supplement the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative which was launched in 1996 to reduce the debt burden of qualifying countries to sustainable levels.

The MDRI came into effect on 1 July 2006, and provides for cancellation of eligible debt from the World Bank, the African Development Fund and the IMF for many of the world's poorest and most indebted countries, most of them in Africa. In 2007, the Inter-American Development Bank agreed to provide similar debt relief to the five poorest countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The overall aim is to relieve these countries from the burden of servicing debt and assist them in making progress on the UN Millennium Development Goals.

To date, the total debt relief provided by the international community to eligible countries under both of these international initiatives has been $102.4 billion, of which $ 3.35 billion has been provided by the IMF, in line with the commitments into which it entered.

Ireland is recognised internationally for the role we are playing in focusing on the reduction of global poverty and hunger and making international aid more effective for developing countries. We have strongly supported initiatives to ease or cancel the debt burden. Importantly, Ireland's bilateral assistance to the developing world is exclusively in the form of grants rather than loans. Ireland's share of the total cost of debt relief provided by the World Bank under the MDRI is €58.64 million. The Government contributed this amount in full in 2006. Ireland has also contributed over €20 million towards the cost of implementing the HIPC initiative.

The Government's debt policy strategy was prepared jointly by the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Finance, and was launched in 2002. It supports the total cancellation of the debts of the world's poorest countries. A joint review of the strategy is currently being undertaken by the two Departments and an updated debt strategy is currently being drafted.