Politicians make many promises, but few have been made with such frequency and solemnity as the Government's commitment to increase overseas aid spending to the United Nations target of 0.7 per cent of gross national product (GNP).
It is particularly shocking, therefore, to learn from the new Minister of State for overseas co-operation, Mr Conor Lenihan, that the target will not be reached as planned by 2007.
Mr Lenihan believes the goal can still be attained, but not in the timescale originally envisaged. However, the figures belie this assertion; having reached a high of 0.41 per cent of GNP in 2001, aid spending has been falling since, to 0.39 per cent this year. In simple terms, this means Ireland spends a modest 39 cent out of every €100 of national wealth on the poor of the developing world. More than half of Irish bilateral aid is spent on seven poor "priority countries", six in Africa. Uganda, with €32.6 million, receives most support, followed by Mozambique (€29 million) and Ethiopia (€24 million).
The credibility of the Taoiseach is intimately bound with the commitment to meet the UN target. He was Opposition leader when it was made Fianna Fáil policy in 1997, and it has appeared in all party manifestoes and programmes for Government since. In September 2000, he told the UN Millennium Summit in New York: "Today, on behalf of the Government and people of Ireland, I wish in this forum publicly to make a commitment to fully meeting the UN target of spending 0.7 per cent of GNP on Official Development Assistance".
Mr Ahern restated the promise at another UN summit in Johannesburg in 2002, at the UN General Assembly last year and again at the launch of the UN Human Development Report in Dublin. His Government has paraded its "achievement" in numerous international forums and earned tremendous good will as a result; without the commitment, Ireland would have had a harder time winning a seat on the UN Security Council.
All through this period, when Ireland was becoming one of the richest countries in the world, the Government was failing to put Exchequer money where its mouth was. An interim target of 0.45 per cent was not reached as promised in 2002, or since, as money was trimmed from the aid budget to cushion cutbacks in other areas.
While there was an element of political naivety about Mr Lenihan's intervention, he should not be blamed for calling the situation as it is. Because the State's wealth, and therefore its GNP, has continued to grow, the aid target was seriously off-track.
The real questions are for the Taoiseach to answer. Is he still committed to reaching the UN target? Is he committed to the 2007 deadline? If not, why not, and when will the target be reached?
The Government should now develop a plan setting out year-by-year increases in aid to bring the budget up to the target. The one billion people in the world living on less than $1 a day deserve nothing less.