At the Millennium Summit in September world leaders adopted a Declaration which includes many fine words about our collective responsibility, our shared humanity and our fundamental values. The Declaration adopted a set of Millennium development goals as an expression of our common determination to deal with extreme poverty and hunger.

The rapid spread of HIV/AIDS in the world challenges us to live up to our commitments at the Millennium Summit. It challenges not only govemments but also the entire multilateral system focussed on the UN to respond effectively and urgently. It challenges the international community to establish a partnership to fight the single greatest threat to development. HIV/AIDS is transforming the development agenda. It is bringing poor people deeper into poverty. It is making vulnerable people more vulnerable.
The epidemic is destroying years of development gains. Africa's precious resource of leaders, teachers and parents is being depleted. Countries are losing their most productive workers. Children confront another threat to their health and safety. The disease causes untold physical and emotional suffering.

We are responsible to future generations for our response to this global crisis. Already our conscience should be deeply troubled. We have not done enough. We have been too slow to appreciate the depth and extent of the crisis. We have already failed too many. The fate of millions, already ill or under threat from the epidemic, lies in our hands.

This Special Session of the General Assembly must be the beginning of a new, revitalised and effective global response. We must urgently tackle the issues of leadership, the fight against poverty, care for the infected and resources.

The Fight Against Poverty

While the UN Conferences of the last decade were setting ambitious development goals, AIDS was steadily advancing. It has now reached a point where it is making a mockery of our common goals. Its spread was facilitated by the poor state of basic public services. These were underfunded and ineffective because of declining aid, misconceived and misapplied structural adjustment policies, growing indebtedness and weak governance.

The spread of HIV/AIDS is both a symptom and cause of poverty and global inequality. It has confronted us with an undeniable case for accelerating and strengthening global efforts to eradicate extreme poverty .

The fight against HIV/AIDS will never be won without improved international terms of trade, an end to the impossible debt burden on poor countries, more development aid and the achievement of the international development targets..
 
In tackling extreme poverty we must remember the profound impact HIV/AIDS has on individuals.

In this respect, I want to recall, and pay tribute to, the short life of Nkosi Johnson who lived, and most recently died with HIV/AIDS. For many, he has represented the human face of this disease in Africa.

In his case, however, the abiding memory in not fragility but strength. It is not weakness but power. His influence at, and subsequent to, the Durban HIV/AIDS Conference will live on. He has shown us the importance of including those infected in our national and international efforts to rid the world of this scourge that targets the most vulnerable.

Leadership and Prevention

The Secretary General in his report for this Special Session, said that leadership at global, country and community level is the single most important factor in reversing the AIDS epidemic

Let us never forget that HIV/AIDS is fully preventible. We have learned from over 20 years of attempting to control this disease that prevention programmes work . They have succeeded in halting the transmission of the virus to many millions of people. Prevention of HIV infection must be the mainstay of national, regional and international responses to the epidemic.

Effective national campaigns to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS demand effective political leadership. Political leaders have to help people face up to often uncomfortable facts about the spread of the disease. They have to spearhead prevention campaigns tailored to national and local cultures and traditions. They have to overcome the forces of denial, prejudice and fear.

There is a need to ensure women, who are especially vulnerable to infection and who bear so much of the burden of care, are protected from exposure to this virus. This requires a pro-active effort which fully respects their rights and empowers them to protect their health.

Without such political commitment from the highest level, no amount of resources or medicines will help. Such political leadership requires courage. It demands that Presidents and Prime Ministers openly acknowledge the threat to their peoples.

While we might despair of the fact that over 58 million people have been infected with HIV to date, we need to remind ourselves of the possibility of many, many more being infected in parts of the world where the epidemic is in its infancy. Political leaders have to promote substantial investments in prevention while not ignoring the need to respond comprehensively to those who have previously been infected.
 
Leadership at the national level must be supported by leadership at the global level. The threat of HIV/AIDS demands a global partnership if the resources, coordination and surveillance necessary to hait and reverse the spread of the disease are to be put in place. Global leaders must admit the scale of the crisis. They must mobilise public support for more resources for development.

Kofi Annan has shown us the way forward. Leaders in the developed and developing countries need to heed his words and act.
Care, Support and Treatment

People living with HIV/AIDS in poor countries must have access to effective support and treatment. The infected need our help to prolong their lives and to allow them to live in dignity and with the respect they deserve. The debate on access to medicine must be placed in the wider context of access to care.

Governments, development agencies, the private sector and civil society organisations need to work together to overcome the obstacles to provisiog care for the infected.
A focus on technology alone will not be enough. We must also work at very basic levels to support widows, orphans, the elderly and other family members who have shown remarkable dignity and courage in their support for those living with AIDS. Many costs of caring for the sick, the dying and the dead, fall to them. Being poor, they are the least able to cope. We must now find ways to help them because for them the need is immediate - and they cannot wait.

While some progress has been made in making anti-retroviral medications more available, progress has been hindered by the absence of functioning support and supply systems

The poor everywhere have a right to life-saving medicines. I strongly support the efforts of the European Community to secure international agreement to a system of tiered pricing. Urgent progress on this is necessary if we are get the necessary medicines to those most in need.

I welcome the participation of the international pharmaceutical industry in the active dialogue on the provision of anti-retroviral and other medicines to those infected with HIV/AIDS in poor countries.. The cooperation of the industry is crucial if we are to arrive at a system which will end the current unacceptable global divide on access.
I also support efforts in the WTO to develop a clear understanding on the TRIPS agreement provisions permitting compulsory licensing. The international patent agreements do not stand in the way of access by poor countries to medicine that can save lives. What is needed is greater clarity on how their provisions can be implemented in cases of national emergency such as the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
 
Investment in better ways to improve health cannot be left to market forces. There has been totally inadequate investment in research and development on treatment and prevention of the diseases of the poor. We have no AIDS vaccine and no malaria vaccine. We need an international effort involving public-private partnerships to accelerate the development of more candidate vaccines. Greater incentives for industry to invest in research and more public funding are urgently required.

Resources

The global and national response to the AIDS crisis will need substantial additional resources. It will be necessary to reverse the decline in development aid and to renew our efforts to reach the UN target of spending 0.7% of our GNP on ODA. I believe this should be a key issue at next year's Financing for Development conference.
A sustained global effort to reach the UN ODA target would release sufficient resources to fight poverty and to tackle the global AIDS crisis. This is where we need political will and political vision. To live up to the high ideals of the Millennium Summit and to confront this global 21st century threat, there is no alternative but to secure a major transfer of resources from developed to developing countries.

We can talk about the fight against AIDS being the primary responsibility of the governments in the affected countries. We can talk about new public-private partnerships. We can talk about globalisation and its long term benefit. What is needed and needed now is money. Beginning this year we need to see a sustained and sharp increase in development aid targeted at extreme poverty.

If we can spend sixty billion dollars fixing the Y2K problem, we can mobilise international funding to create a better life for millions who face untold suffering.
At the Millennium Summit, I committed Ireland to reaching the UN target on ODA by 2007 and an interim target of 0.45% of GNP by the end of next year. We will meet this commitment.

Next year our development budget will increase by over $100 million. This means that between 2000 and 2003, our ODA will have doubled.

At least $30 million per year of these new and additional funds will be used on HIV/AIDS programmes. Our primary concern is to ensure that this increased funding reaches the most affected countries quickly and in full partnership with the governments of the countries concerned. Last year we adopted a HIV/AIDS strategy for our aid programme. This will guide our approach.

We will disburse these additional funds through whatever channels promise efficient and effective delivery and impact at the country and local level.
 
Possibilities include the new Global Fund for Health and HIV/AIDS, additional debt relief, more funds for our bilateral programmes, increased funding for NGO activities and increased funding to international organisations such as UNAIDS.

NGOs are playing a crucial role in all sectors of the fight against the disease. They are flexible, fast moving and adapted to local conditions. We must make maximum use of their potential contribution.

The devastating social and economic impact of HIV/ AIDS needs to be taken into account when assessing debt relief. If this means that there should be another enhancement of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative then we would not object. If this means that countries with high prevalence rates of HIV/AIDS should receive debt cancellation, we will agree. Lending in very poor countries to national HIV/AIDS programmes while, at the same time, receiving interest on old and clearly unserviceable debts is not coherent.

I have previously referred to the life and courage of Nkosi Johnson. There are many, many more Nkosi Johnsons - each of the 36 million people living with HIV/AIDS today has a name, a family and a right to live with dignity and respect. Because of poverty and our common failure to mobilise an effective response, those rights are not enjoyed by many people living, and dying with HIV/AIDS

I can assure you that I, as Prime Minister of Ireland, am fully committed to the global fight against this disease. The Irish Government, on behalf of the Irish people, will substantially contribute to the implementation of the commitments outlined in Declaration which this Special Session will adopt.

In his address at the close of the Thirteenth International HIV/AIDS Conference in Durban last year, Nelson Mandela stated that "The time for action is now - right now !" Our presence here provides an opportunity to ensure that these words are translated into effective global action. We must relegate this global threat to a distant chapter in the history of mankind.
 

Thank you