Can Charity Begin at Home?

We are cutting €95m from our overseas aid budget. There is a way in which this money could be used to create jobs in Ireland yet provide emergency aid overseas. How?

Our sheep farmers are finding it impossible to dispose of wool. Some are paying to have it taken away. Let government buy that wool at a nominal price and transport it to the spinners and weavers in Donegal where it can be used to manufacture clothing, underclothing, sweaters, socks, overcoats et al.

Employ those workers on terms of absolute flexibility of labour, so that production can be switched to the manufacture of all those other items that are required at the scene of a disaster, cooking utensils, medical supplies, and, most importantly of all, rain-proof, wool-filled and lined duvets and tents.

Right now it is reported that we source and store all such emergency aid abroad, most likely at inflated prices. Just imagine how much more efficient it would be were all such emergency aid to be manufactured and stored here in Ireland, ready to be flown to the scene of any emergency at a moment's notice. Nor would such practical aid be confined to disaster areas: Refugee settlements exist all over the world. Aid such as is proposed here could not find its way into Swiss bank accounts.

In these straitened times there is an urgent need for government to look seriously at the possibilities of import substitution. This could be done by gathering together an elite group of investigators who would have experience in business, manufacture, farming, fishery, tourism etc, then let them loose in every department of government with a brief to subject every item imported to a forensic examination with a view to having the work done here at home. Whatever its nature. (Having the literature pertaining to the Lisbon Treaty published in Portugal was criminal.)

In response to this suggestion the Minister with responsibility for Foreign Aid, Minister Power, replied that it was his department’s policy to use the UN’s procurement scheme.

Two weeks ago the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin called this very scheme into question.

The more hands money passes through, the greater the possibility that it will adhere to somebody’s hands along the line.

Trocaire, Concern and GOAL are all organisations with unblemished records. Alas, of necessity their budgets will be cut this year.

The money they will lose could be used creatively to help those in need of their assistance, while at the same time assisting our sheep farmers and the crafts people and unemployed textile workers of Donegal. Does it not make sense?