Overseas aid delay 'shameful'

The Government's failure to meet its long-standing commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of our GNP on overseas aid by 2007 is "shameful", according to the Green Party.

Two aid agencies, Oxfam Ireland and World Vision Ireland, also expressed disappointment with yesterday's announcement by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern that the Government has chosen to delay meeting its overseas aid commitment to 2012 when they believed the date should be 2010 at the latest.

They also called for the Government to publish its overseas aid commitment for each and every year until the 0.7 target is reached.

World Vision, which said that 11 million children will die from extreme poverty for each year that the international community delays increasing aid, will today launch a petition urging an increase in aid and arguing that reaching the 2012 target is "non-negotiable".

Oxfam Ireland advocacy officer Colin Roche said the delay in reaching the 0.7 target "means extremely poor people will be deprived of much-needed resources".

A third agency, Christian Aid, called for credible plans to ensure the new target is met and joined with Oxfam in urging legislation to safeguard commitments to overseas aid.

Green Party finance spokesman Dan Boyle said the Taoiseach had told a gathering of world leaders in 2002 that Ireland would reach the 0.7 target by 2007. Ireland was at that time seeking a seat on the United Nations Security Council and had now "shamefully reneged" on the 2007 target. The Taoiseach, "with all the audaciousness he can muster", had said Ireland, now one of the world's richest countries, would meet the target in 2012.

Budget 2006 would disclose whether any sincere attempt was being made to meet the new target, Mr Boyle said. He said Tánaiste Mary Harney had said she would prefer 2010 as the new target date "as if her party had not been involved in acquiescing in the shameful abandonment of the 2007 target".