EU Presidency needs global social justice agenda

Sinn Féin has urged the Dublin government to adopt a global social justice agenda for its Programme for the EU Presidency in 2004. Aengus Ó Snodaigh questioned Foreign Minister Brian Cowen in the Dáil on the matter on Wednesday

Trócaire has put it very effectively - poverty, disease and injustice are the deadliest weapons of mass destruction and the greatest source of daily insecurity for millions of people.

That is why Aengus Ó Snodaigh urged the government to use the Irish Presidency of the EU as an opportunity to put fulfilment of the Millennium Development Goals at the top of the EU and international agenda as the most effective means of ensuring human and global security.

If the government places this emphasis on the Irish EU Presidential Programme, the broadest section of the Irish people will support it wholeheartedly and moreover regard it as a source of pride. If they fail to do so, however, the Irish EU Presidency will join the Irish tenure on the UN Security Council as another opportunity wasted.