Green Party Private Members Motion on the G8 Summit
That Dáil Éireann,
given the meeting of the leaders of the G8 countries being held in Edinburgh, Scotland and given subsequent meetings being held for the UN Millennium Summit in New York and meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in September 2005 and the World Trade Organisation ministerial conference in December 2005
calls on the Irish Government through its own policies to assist in making poverty history and to this end
Reaffirms Ireland's policy of supporting 100% debt cancellation for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries, going beyond the inadequate, though welcome, proposal of the G8 group of nations to restrict such cancellation to a list of 18 countries. We believe that such debt cancellation should not be accompanied by damaging conditions which would erode the benefits of cancellation; that such cancellation should be funded out of additional monies, supporting the views of Non-Governmental Organisations that International Monetary Fund gold reserves be sold to help finance debt cancellation; and that developed nations move away from operating as both judge and plaintiff in relation to heavily indebted poor countries.
Recognises that debt cancellation is only part of what is needed to assist Heavily Indebted Poor Countries and that targeted and untied aid must continue to be given and significantly increased. As the Irish Government has acknowledged that it will not meet its commitment to reach 0.7 % of GNP to be devoted to Overseas Development Aid by 2007, this House resolves to agree a new target date. In this regard, the Taoiseach should reaffirm Ireland?s commitment to this target at the forthcoming UN Millennium Summit.
Further recognises the importance of fair trade in bringing about international social justice. This demands re-examination of subsidies given to producers in the developed world and the effect of such subsidies on their counterparts in less developed nations and that the Irish Government supports a reappraisal of the European Union?s Economic Partnership Agreements with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries in light of serious concerns that they would inhibit rather than promote the economic development of those countries.
Also acknowledges the need to restrict the international trade in arms in order to assist conflict resolution and prevent the terrible cost in human lives and attendant economic costs of such trade. In this regard, the Irish Government must strongly support the initiative being taken by the Government of Finland to bring about an Arms Trade Treaty through the framework of the United Nations.
Lastly, given the increasing convergence between the issues of environmental degradation and world poverty, as evidenced by the fact that the costs of climate change are being disproportionately borne by the world?s poorest people, resolves that the Irish Government, in the upcoming renegotiation of the Kyoto agreement, support a fair distribution of carbon allocation on a per capita basis.
Trevor Sargent, John Gormley, Dan Boyle, Ciaran Cuffe, Eamon Ryan, Paul Gogarty
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