The former President, Mrs Mary Robinson, has urged the Government to develop a new strategy towards trade and development that would reflect Ireland's commitment to helping the world's poor, while protecting Irish farmers.
Speaking in Cancun, where she was attending the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial conference as honorary president of Oxfam, Mrs Robinson praised Ireland's record on development aid.
"Ireland has very good standing. It's such a help to me in a human rights context that I'm Irish and it's because Ireland is seen as having an empathy and an identity with developing countries.
"But of course I also recognise that a Minister for Agriculture in a meeting like this has his constituency and farm lobby and that's very understandable. There's no easy way.
"But I think there should be a plan ahead at this stage that ties in with the fact that Ireland is very progressive in having a really good, thoughtful approach to development aid and to match that we need, at least within the EU, to be seen to be on the side of moving forward as opposed to tucking in with the French and not moving forward," Mrs Robinson said.
Ireland and France were the EU countries that showed most resistance to reducing subsidies for their farmers and to making substantial cuts in tariffs on food imports.
Mrs Robinson said that, despite her call for the elimination of export subsidies, she believed that Irish farmers deserved EU support.
"I come from Mayo, where I'm surrounded by poor, very poor Irish farmers trying to make a living for their families, trying to educate them, send them to third level and so on.
"Certainly, poor farmers in Ireland are entitled to support and are entitled to make a living on the farm. But the overall impact is devastating. I see it all the time. I see the grinding poverty and I see the way in which the aid budget is not going to really make an impact and also, it's not the way to do it.
"There's a need for aid but countries want to trade out of poverty," she said.
Mrs Robinson said that the issue of human rights was playing an increasingly important role in international trade talks as poor countries attempted to reconcile their obligation to provide, health, food and education for citizens with WTO trade rules.
She said that a recent WTO agreement, which allows poor countries to manufacture and import cheap versions of life-saving drugs, was a harbinger of things to come.
"That was a pure human rights issue. The pharmaceutical companies in the United States were determined not to give way but they couldn't resist the public opinion and the very strong views of many other countries, including the European Union. So they had to give way on a human rights issue of access to drugs in a pandemic. We'll have more of that and so we should," she said.
