Republican News · Thursday 20 February 2003

Martin Ferris

A war on poverty

"We in Sinn Féin want to articulate the positive aspects of neutrality. At its core, this must mean being a positive force in arguing for not just nuclear disarmament but a massive scaling down of the international weapons industry.

We believe that neutrality can be a tool to resolve conflict in the modern world.

For a practical example of this in action you need look no further than the unparalleled record of Irish personnel on UN peace keeping and humanitarian missions.

We are uniquely placed on the international stage. While counted as one of the industrialised so called "first world" states, we also have an experience of colonial occupation and exploitation that makes us all too aware of the situation facing the less developed states in central and south America, Africa and Asia.

We can be a bridge between the global haves and have nots, between the exploiters and the exploited. We should have used our membership of the UN Security Council as a campaigning member in favour of debt cancellation, and renewed investment and aid for less developed states. We should have been lobbying for making cheaper medicines available to combat AIDs, TB, Hepatitis and other treatable ailments.

As a neutral state we are not advocating pacifism. We are advocating global justice and when necessary will support a just war. For example we will support a war on poverty. We will support stopping the arms trade and replace it with fair trade.

Why for example has this government each of the past five years refused to meet its own meagre commitments on Overseas External Aid. The simple act of sharing our wealth internationally could be a powerful signal to other wealthier states to show that we are willing to fight global poverty.

Ironically, many Irish aid workers and millions of euros of Irish households' money will end up running refugee camps and feeding stations on the borders of Iraq as this war is waged.

During the last decade of number of people living on less than $1 daily barely fell, and the UN estimates that at current rates it will take more 130 years to rid the world of hunger.

That is the world we have created today. All the countries of the European Union (EU) collectively spend about $150 billion on defence each year. The United States alone will spend upwards of $380 billion in 2003. We are giving Saddam a month to disarm the weapons and technologies sold to him by EU and US companies. At the same time we are condemning hundreds of millions more to a century of hunger.

We urge the deputies here tonight to vote with their conscience tonight for a war on hunger, for an end to the arms trade and a campaign for fair trade for one small step on towards the Emmet ideal of Ireland taking its place among the nations of the earth and not being in his words "the pliant minion of power". That is the choice we face today."