There is good news for Ireland in the agreement over the size of the US budget after months of wrangling on Capitol Hill.
This is because the final package voted by the House of Representatives on Thursday includes an agreement to pay $926 million in arrears to the United Nations. The money will be paid over three years but falls short of the $1.6 billion that the UN says is owed by the United States.
The Senate is expected to approve the $391 billion omnibus spending bill by the weekend.
The payment of US arrears should mean that countries like Ireland, which are owed expenses for UN peacekeeping missions over the years, will be reimbursed. Ireland is owed £9.5 million. The total owed to countries which have contributed troops to peacekeeping missions is about $1 billion and the Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, has said that these countries would have priority when the US pays its back dues.
But the US has attached conditions to its payment of these arrears which could yet upset the deal. Republicans in Congress insisted that the US would only pay two-thirds of its estimated arrears and then on condition that its future contributions were reduced to 22 per cent of the UN budget instead of 25 per cent.
The US also wants its share of peacekeeping costs to be reduced to 25 per cent from 31 per cent and demands that there be no increase in the UN budget even to allow for inflation.
It remains to be seen if these conditions will be accepted by the other UN members. But they will be relieved that the US has finally agreed to make some payment of its arrears after three years of haggling between the Clinton administration and Republicans.
"This is historic legislation. It will settle the United Nations arrears issue once and for all," said Senator Jesse Helms, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"It is no secret that many at the UN don't like this legislation one bit and firmly believe that Congress should pay the UN whatever the UN demands "in full and on time", said Mr Helms. But he hoped the UN would not "choose a path of stubborn resistance" and would see the merits of the required reforms.
The White House and Congress have agreed to adopt the legislation crafted by Mr Helms and Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the foreign relations panel. In recent years, President Clinton has refused to sign the bill which included paying UN arrears because it was accompanied by restrictions on funding family planning organisations abroad which practise or promote abortion. But matters reached crisis point this year as the US risked losing its vote in the UN General Assembly if it defaulted again on payments.
This is why President Clinton has reluctantly accepted the anti-abortion restriction and has said he will sign the Bill when it passes the Senate.
An official at the Irish mission to the UN said yesterday that Ireland would probably receive back payments for peacekeeping as a result of the US decision. But he cautioned that this could be a slow process beginning in 2001.