The Government's overseas aid division is being renamed "Irish Aid", with immediate effect.
The Government also claims Ireland is now one year ahead of schedule in its programme for reaching the UN target of allocating 0.7 per cent of Gross National Product in Official Development Assistance (ODA).
Irish Aid is a division of the Department of Foreign Affairs and was previously known as Development Co-operation Ireland (DCI).
"There was a general acknowledgment that the name 'Development Co-operation Ireland' had gained little recognition," said Minister of State Conor Lenihan. "Irish Aid is simple and straightforward: it explains what we do and is much easier to understand."
The total overseas aid allocation for 2006 was €675 million, or 0.47 per cent of GNP, but Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern said yesterday the figure had now reached €734 million, or 0.51 per cent of GNP.
This was the result of a decision by his colleague, Minister for Finance Brian Cowen, in December that Ireland would make an additional once-off contribution of approximately €59 million to the World Bank for debt cancellation.
The Irish contribution is to help meet the costs of the cancellation of debts for some of the world's poorest countries, mainly in Africa, which are due to the International Development Association (IDA) under the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Meanwhile, the overseas aid charity Trócaire is calling on the Government to increase its efforts to bring about an end to child labour in developing countries.
Trócaire is making the "scandal" of child labour the focus its Lenten campaign.