Government 'weak' on debt cancellation says Labour's Burton

The Labour Party spokeswoman on finance, Ms Joan Burton, has accused the Government of being "essentially timorous and weak in its approach to debt cancellation for the poorest countries in the world".

The Irish EU presidency "must count as a lost opportunity by the Taoiseach and Ireland to seriously influence the debate around debt cancellation", she added.

Speaking at the International Jesuit Conference on Debt & Trade in Dublin yesterday, she noted that "as we approach All-Ireland Final day, it is ironic that, for the price of pint on that day per head of population of the richer countries, the debt of the poorest countries could be cancelled."

She called on the next finance minister "to set a fresh agenda, and become an active voice for a just deal on debt and other issues for developing nations".

The former director of the Catholic Agency for Oversees Development, Mr Julian Filochowski, told the conference that four billion people in the world live on less than $2 a day.

The Irish Jesuit provincial, Father John Dardis SJ, warned that increased restrictions on immigration, or narrowing the definition of refugee, were neither "long-term or viable solutions, even if they can reduce the numbers in the short term." Such measures didn't "address the root causes or tackle the real issue - a system which does not work".

Fr Dardis said he believed "the key conflict of this century - the key issue - will be the polarisation between the countries of the North and the countries of the South". A root cause of the injustice involved was "the system of world trade which exists".