Ireland will be spending an estimated €1.5 billion annually on overseas aid within seven years under the terms of an undertaking given by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern at the UN World Summit last night, write Deaglán de Bréadún, Foreign Affairs Correspondent, in New York and Marc Coleman, Economics Editor
Following an intense campaign by non-governmental organisations, church bodies and public figures from politics and entertainment, the Government has issued a revised timetable for reaching the agreed UN target of 0.7 per cent of gross national product in Official Development Assistance (ODA).
Mr Ahern pledged at a meeting of world leaders at the UN five years ago that Ireland would reach the 0.7 per cent target by 2007. The promise helped Ireland top the poll in elections to the Security Council but later there was widespread and sustained criticism when the Government abandoned the deadline, pleading changed economic circumstances and the impact of the 9/11 terror attacks.
A revised target date has been set and Mr Ahern's new commitment in his summit speech was given in unequivocal terms: "Today I recommit Ireland to reaching the UN target of 0.7 per cent. This will be achieved by 2012, three years earlier than the agreed EU target date of 2015."
Mr Ahern said it was "an affront to our common humanity" that 30,000 children died each day throughout the world from "easily-preventable" diseases; that 100 million people went to bed hungry and that 100 million children were not receiving a basic education.
The Government had tripled overseas aid since coming into office in 1997 and now it would be tripled again. As the first "milestone", aid expenditure would go from the current €545 million to €658 million in 2006 and €773 million in 2007, to reach an interim target of 0.5 per cent. As part of this, the allocation for the fight against HIV/Aids would be doubled next year to €100 million.
Given that the previous aid target was abandoned, there are inevitable doubts about the Government's commitment on this occasion. Mr Ahern sought to address these at a news conference in UN headquarters yesterday.
The current administration's term of office expires in 2007 and Mr Ahern said the figures outlined for reaching 0.5 per cent by that stage were "binding". He added: "We now have it in the three-year [ budgetary] cycle."
He continued: "The figures up to 2012 are based on the growth perspective that [ the Department of] Finance see at this stage and I think that's realistic."
Rejecting suggestions that there should be legislation to ensure the target was reached, he said: "It's not the way we do business."
Fine Gael's foreign affairs spokesman Bernard Allen said the decision to postpone the target date to 2012 was "a betrayal of the world's hungry and poor". He added: "Legislation must be introduced to ensure the amount pledged is actually given to the world's poor."
Labour's foreign affairs spokesman Michael D. Higgins said: "The Government is using the General Assembly to articulate a new target date. Such is their record that this will be seen as nothing more than a camouflage that cannot be trusted."
Deputy chief executive of Concern, Paddy Maguinness said in New York: "This announcement is a victory for the people who are living in grinding poverty in the developing world and the people of Ireland who put pressure on the Government to deliver this pledge."
Director of aid agency Trócaire, Justin Kilcullen said: "We had hoped for 0.7 per cent by 2010 but we've been promised 0.6 by 2010 and 0.7 by 2012 and that' s a very positive outcome."