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December 11, 2003

Flying Bertie. Irish premier Bertie Ahern jetted in for a flying visit to address the plenary this morning - one of a few heads of state bothering to do so.

The Taoiseach squeezed the speech into a jam-packed day of engagements, which saw him flying out to Brussels less than two hours after he touched down in Geneva.

"We want to tap into the huge pool of ICT expertise in Irish industry in a new partnership in support of poverty reduction," the premier promised. "We will encourage and facilitate Irish ICT volunteers to use their skills in support of capacity building programmes in our partner countries. We will consult industry and Third Level institutions about new areas of research and ICT development. We will work to development new partnerships between Irish ICT companies and enterprises in developing countries."

He also described the digital divide in access to ICTs "as a symptom of a wider development divide". "Unless we tackle the root causes of global inequality and injustice, we will not bridge the digital divide, " he argued. "Fundamentally as we agreed at Monterrey, we need better governance, sound ecomomic management, more Overseas Development Aid, more debt relief, a fair world trade order and a relentless focus on the fight against HIV/Aids."

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