TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen is to discuss issues of world hunger and climate change at a meeting with United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon who is visiting Dublin today.
The UN chief will also meet President Mary McAleese and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin, as well as attending the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Mr Ban will give an address at Dublin Castle this morning, under the auspices of the Institute of International and European Affairs, entitled Sixty Years of UN Peacekeeping.
Topics for discussion at his meeting with the Foreign Affairs Committee are expected to include the Lisbon Treaty; the situation in Sudan; Ireland’s role in UN peacekeeping; UN reform; the Middle East; climate change; and women’s rights.
Chairman Dr Michael Woods said: “The committee is looking forward to speaking to Ban Ki-moon and questioning him on a range of issues which this committee has covered in recent times.
“There are a number of pressing international matters which the committee has addressed of late, and we are keen to hear the secretary general’s views on these topics and consider his proposals regarding solutions to some of the world’s crises.”
A spokesman for Dóchas, the Irish Association of Non-Governmental Development Organisations, pointed out that the secretary general’s visit came at a time of “enormous – and disproportionate” cuts in Ireland’s overseas aid budget. Ireland had made a commitment to allocate 0.7 per cent of Gross National Income to overseas aid by 2012. “This policy, and the influence and respect it has brought Ireland around the world, is at stake.”
Dóchas expects Mr Ban to raise “the fact that the aid cuts have also meant that Ireland’s contributions to the UN organisations has gone down by some 50 per cent”.
