Aid is imperfect, but needed

Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo argues in her book, Dead Aid, that aid to African countries is doing more harm than good (Agenda, 9/8/09), but it is incongruous to suggest that it has been an abject failure.

More importantly, her argument callously disregards the fact that millions of lives have been saved as a direct result of aid from the international community. Aid may not be the complete answer to all the problems, but the developing world would collapse without it.

Moyo’s thesis advocates that all aid to the developing world must cease in the next five years. This is a highly dangerous and reckless prescription for the poorest of the poor. The fact is that such an approach would condemn millions to death. The uncomfortable truth is that, without aid, starvation and illness would wipe out entire populations across Africa.

Until the international community stirs itself into sweeping action to engage with the brutal inequalities confronting the developing world, aid is all we have.

The principal reason why aid is not having the impact it must in the developing world is because of institutional corruption. The poor are cheated by their callous leaders who line their own pockets by siphoning off vital aid.

Uncomfortable realities like corruption have to be confronted if they are to be dealt with, not swept out of sight. The developing world cannot fix itself; a massive global effort is required, and to deny this effort in the form of aid is to perpetuate the cycle of suffering of the poor.

John O’Shea Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin

Failure of the government

In his article, Backroom (9/8/09) is essentially telling all local interest groups to desist from arguing the local case and do what their lords and masters in national government tell them. He seems to forget that the role of local groups in a democracy is to argue the case for their local area.

More importantly, he ignores the fact that the role of government is to govern. If the government governs, what Backroom calls ‘‘the demands of one group’’ will not ‘‘be allowed to dictate national policy’’.

If, as Backroom wisely said, ‘‘the conciliation of every angry group’’ came ‘‘pretty low’’ in the determination of national policy for the past 12 years, we would not be in the mess in which we now are. Neither would we be witnessing what he calls ‘‘the mother of all recessions and the spectacle of the country teetering on the edge of a cliff’’.

The time for the government to take Backroom’s advice and ‘‘realise that not all politics is local’’ was 12 years ago, not now. If it had done so, we would not have Backroom now be moaning ‘‘the unsustainable fiscal expansion of recent years’’.

Contrary to Backroom’s contention, therefore, it was the failure of the government to govern in the last 12 years, rather than the demands of ‘‘every angry group’’, that caused our present problems.

A Leavy Sutton, Dublin 13

Leave lowest paid alone

Calls for a review of the minimum wage should be placed in context. According to the 2007 National Employment Survey,14 per cent of all employees in the state had hourly earnings below €10,while a similar percentage had earnings above €40 per hour.

When account is taken of hours worked, employees earning less than €250 a week account for only 4 per cent of the national wage bill, as compared with a 13.5 per cent share for those earning more than €1,500 a week.

A 10 per cent reduction in wages for all 233,000 employees earning less than €250 a week would reduce the national payroll by 0.4 per cent, whereas a similar reduction for the 233,000 highest-paid employees would reduce the national payroll by eight times as much.

For maximum impact, any campaign to improve national wage competitiveness should start with high-paid employees, directors and self-employed -rather than the lowest paid. Our politicians should take substantial reductions in salaries which, even after minor tweaking, are still among the highest in the world.

Brian Flanagan Blackrock, Co Dublin

Lisbon Treaty debate

The real issue in the referendum debate is whether it is better for Ireland to have the EU run on the basis of the Nice Treaty, which is already in force, or to replace this with the Lisbon Treaty. Under the Nice Treaty, once the EU has 27 member states, the size of the commission has to be reduced to a figure below 27.

There are various ways in which this can be done.

One is on the basis of rotation, under which a member state would lose its commissioner for five out of every 15 years.

Another, suggested by Nicolas Sarkozy last year, was for states to share commissionerships -and, for Ireland, he had in mind sharing with Britain.

On the other hand, under the Lisbon Treaty it is left to the council of ministers to determine the size of the commission without restriction and it has now been agreed that, in the event of Irish ratification of the treaty, the rule of one commissioner per member state will continue.

In other words, under the existing arrangement, Ireland will almost certainly lose its commissioner next year for anything up to five years, while if Lisbon is ratified Ireland will keep its commissioner on the same basis as every other country.

In conclusion, if Lisbon is not ratified, then Ireland will be marginalised within the EU decision making process, not because of the hostility of other governments, though in some cases this may be real enough, but quite simply through the application of the existing rules.

Ed Kelly Szeged, Hungary

* The Lisbon Treaty is no less than an attack on the democracy of the Irish people and it was, quite rightly, rejected decisively by the sensible people of Ireland. Would the rest of Europe have rejected it had they been given the opportunity to express their views?

In any other than the undemocratic and fraudulent European Union, the Irish decision would have been final. It would undoubtedly have been accepted had the vote gone the other way.

But this was not satisfactory to the dictators of Europe, and the people are to be asked yet again to reverse their decision.

It is to be hoped that they will stand their ground and reject this further attack on their democracy.

J Anthony Gower Newport, Isle of Wight

Banking system needs overhaul

Your article entitled ‘Hard line needed with banks’ (9/8/09), on the necessity for consolidation in the banking system, makes the following observation: ‘‘The flip side here, and it is a troubling one, is that there will be less competition in the market.”

But surely this is missing the point. Since the latest convulsion in capitalism took place two years ago, mergers and takeovers in the global banking system have become the norm. Such was also the case following the crash of 1929.

Capitalism, in its pure sense, ceased to exist in the 19th century, as ‘consolidation’ and cartels became more of a feature of the global economic environment.

The real issue, however, is how we make the global banking system subservient to the common good, rather than fret over the lack of competition which, in reality, has never really existed.

Sean Whelan Nenagh, Co Tipperary