Madam, – Earlier this year, the OECD praised Irish Aid as a “reliable and flexible” donor with a “cutting edge” aid programme. However, cuts to the overseas aid budget have totalled €224 million, or the equivalent of 24 per cent, since February. This is the biggest percentage cut imposed across any Government department.
Ireland is facing the most difficult challenges the nation has ever faced.
There are difficult decisions to be made. Notwithstanding these challenges and the pressure they are placing on Irish people, Ireland must stay true to its core values. These are values which contributed to our hard-won international reputation as a nation, values such as solidarity, co-operation and integrity.
Never before has such a perfect storm enveloped the world’s poor. The financial and economic crises have come on top of a food and fuel crisis in early 2008 and the ongoing climate crisis is likely to be the greatest challenge they have ever faced. One billion people, almost one in six people on the planet, are now going hungry, the first time this has happened in history.
Irish NGOs are faced with withdrawing their operations from some of the poorest countries. Life-saving programmes are being stopped, such as programmes providing essential vaccinations to vulnerable children and clean water and sanitation services to poor communities. Women’s lives in Uganda are being put at risk because their access to prenatal and post-natal care is being withdrawn. Families in Angola, who were eating two meals a day instead of one, may now go hungry again as a result of their programme being cut. People who were already on the brink are being forced into even deeper poverty, resulting in increased morbidity, malnutrition and rising infant mortality.
The overseas aid budget represents less than 1 per cent of overall projected Government spending this year. Further cuts to such a small portion of our spending will have a very limited impact on our financial stability here in Ireland. Withdrawing funding to well-established partners, programmes and beneficiaries is a short-sighted and inefficient means of protecting a substantial investment over the course of Irish Aid’s existence.
We therefore earnestly call on the Government not to cut overseas aid any further in the next budget. – Yours, etc,