One of the biggest events of Ireland's European presidency, a two-day conference on HIV/AIDS in Europe and Central Asia, will be opened this morning in Dublin Castle by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern.
The ministerial-level conference is being hosted by the development division of the Department of Foreign Affairs under the Minister of State for Development Cooperation and Human Rights, Mr Tom Kitt. Guest-speakers include South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the rock star Mr Bob Geldof, the President of Portugal, Dr Jorge Sampaio, and the Prime Minister of Romania, Mr Adrian Nastase.
The former President and UN human rights commissioner Mrs Mary Robinson, the executive director of UNICEF, Ms Carol Bellamy, the president of the European Parliament, Mr Pat Cox and Ireland's European commissioner, Mr David Byrne are also among the scheduled speakers.
The official title of the conference is, "Breaking the Barriers: Partnership to Fight HIV/AIDS in Europe and Central Asia", and a total of 55 health and development ministers from European and Central Asian governments are scheduled to attend.
The conference is due to adopt a programme for combating HIV/AIDS, to be called "The Dublin Declaration". An early draft of this document came in for criticism by development aid workers who felt it lacked "measurable outcomes" and failed to take the global context and scale of the problem into account. A more recent draft set down numerous targets and the dates by which they should be achieved, e.g., the elimination of HIV infection among infants in Europe and Central Asia by 2010.
Mr Kitt said it was hoped the conference would correct the tendency to see HIV/AIDS as an "exclusively African problem" when the disease was also spreading at "an enormous rate" in Europe and Central Asia. The incidence had gone up, according to the official figures, from 38,000 five years ago to 1.5 million at the moment, but many experts believed the real level was much higher.
The conference will hear an address by video-link from the United Nations Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan. There will also be speeches or statements by the Minister for Health, Mr Martin and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, the executive director of the agency, UNAIDS, Dr Peter Piot, the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Mr Antonio Maria Costa, the director general of the World Health Organisation, Dr Lee Jong-wook, and Russia's Deputy Minister of Health, Mr Gennady Onishenko.
Details of the conference have been posted in four languages on www.eu2004.ie which is the Irish presidency's website.