Full Cabinet endorsement of a multi-annual budgeting process for overseas aid would ensure that the Republic would meet its international commitment to provide 0.7 per cent of GNP by 2007, the Dail was assured yesterday.

The commitment was made by the Taoiseach at the UN on September 7th and backed by Cabinet consensus, said Ms Liz O'Donnell, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs.

She said in that respect, it differed fundamentally from previous Irish commitments to achieve the internationally agreed target for Overseas Development Aid (ODA).

She said such agreement in Cabinet, allied to cross-party approval of the initiative within the Oireachtas, obviated the need for an Irish commitment of 0.7 per cent of GNP for ODA to be put on a statutory footing, as previously proposed by the Labour Party and Fine Gael.

The ODA programme would reach 0.45 per cent of GNP by 2002, or £365 million.

The Minister said using multi-annual budgeting in the years 2001-2003 would enable overseas aid to be increased incrementally - until such time as the 0.7 per cent of GNP target was met. The aid target had been increased by 61 per cent in the past two years.

Earlier, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, said the Government was making every possible effort to ensure the safety of Irish priest Father Brendan Forde in Colombia and to see that proper democratic structures were put in place.

Mr Cowen rejected criticisms of Irish support for the EU-backed Plan Colombia, which contained a $1.3 billion military-linked aid package from the US.