The Government went for an easy target by cutting overseas aid, but at least it could have told the full story, writes Paul Cullen, Development Correspondent
It was no accident that the overseas aid budget was made the first target for cuts when the Government unsheathed its collective scalpel after the election in May.
There are, after all, no votes at stake when you break your promises to the poorest people in the world. Developing countries can't organise pickets outside Leinster House. Flood and famine victims can't occupy Government offices.
Your only worry is a few angry nuns in far-off Africa, wringing their hands about the unfairness of it all. Or a few letter-writers to The Irish Times talking about broken promises. Hardly a revolutionary movement to lose sleep over.
Now it emerges that the cuts in the previously announced allocations for aid are even larger than first revealed back in June. On top of the €32 million reduction revealed then, a further €8 million to €10 million is being trimmed off this year's allocation from the State.
The original cut related only to that part of the aid budget coming from the Department of Foreign Affairs. The rest, as reported in today's newspaper, is being cut from the aid allocations made by other Government departments, such as Finance, Education and Agriculture.
We shouldn't be surprised that, just as politicians rush to announce good news, they run a mile when cuts are made. News of the original €32 million cut dribbled out only when the head of Trócaire, Justin Kilcullen, put in an inquiry to the Department of Foreign Affairs.
A few days later, the newly appointed Minister of State for development co-operation, Mr Tom Kitt, called in aid agency bosses to discuss the cut. The agencies were assured their share of the budget was safe, but were not told there was more to the story than emerged then. Mr Kitt is currently touring Irish Aid projects in Africa as part of his trip to the Earth summit in Johannesburg.
The full extent of the cuts only became clear during an analysis of the budget figures by Prof Helen O'Neill, of UCD's development studies centre. Prof O'Neill, who was preparing a paper on the aid budget for the Royal Irish Academy, found that her figures didn't add up - unless the cut was greater than the presumed €32 million.
Thus, for two months, a succession of ministers defended the cut in aid without ever pointing out that the drop was actually larger than the one spoken of.
None of the Government's battery of media advisers took the opportunity to issue a statement clarifying the real extent of the cut.
Mr Kitt was quizzed on three occasions on RTÉ's Morning Ireland about the matter without once taking the opportunity to set the record straight.
Mr Kitt and other ministers have defended their position by pointing out that the aid budget will still increase by €100 million this year. This is correct - and it misses the point.
Aid is measured internationally as a share of gross national product (GNP), that is as a proportion of national wealth. It's a measure of our generosity to the less fortunate countries of the world. Last year, we donated 33 cent out of every €100, or .33 per cent of GNP. By any measure it's quite a modest amount for a country enjoying the biggest boom it has known.
This year was supposed to be the year when aid really took off to an interim target of 0.45 per cent of GNP, and onwards to the UN goal of 0.7 per cent by 2007.
Ministers have dined out on these oft-expressed promises for several years now. The Taoiseach even travelled to New York in 2001 to spell out the Government's aid commitments at the UN Millennium Summit. Ireland was elected to the Security Council on the back of euphoria generated by our seeming goodwill.
As Prof O'Neill points out, "there was no suggestion that these targets were conditional on 'resources permitting'."
Now these promises have unravelled. As Prof O'Neill notes, the Government will miss this year's target "by a very wide margin". The task of reaching the UN target seems impossible. With the ink barely dry on this year's cuts, the Finance Department is looking for next year's savings.
All of this creates a difficult operating environment for Ireland Aid. Based on the promises made by Ministers, officials mapped out a series of structured increases reaching forward to 2007. Promises were made to partners in Africa and plans were laid for new operations. Now some of these have been put on hold - such as plans for establishing operations in Vietnam - and others may have to be abandoned.
The Taoiseach travels to Johannesburg early next week to attend the UN Summit on Sustainable Development. While there, he will see at first hand the work of Irish aid workers in combating HIV/AIDS, and he is expected to launch Ireland Aid's new regional strategy to combat the disease.
He may use the opportunity to restate the Government's commitment to the 0.7 per cent UN target.
One of the emerging themes of the Earth summit is that the developed countries have to accept that the creation of a more just world will involve financial pain. Aid is not an optional extra, a tap to be turned on and off as economic circumstances dictate.
But how does this sit with the Government's decision to take aim at a soft target, in the process ignoring its own commitments?
If Mr Ahern is serious in his commitments on aid, arguably the only way he can restore credibility is to write these commitments to the UN target into legislation, as the Labour Party has proposed.