Ireland now has the proud and unique distinction of having the fastest-growing aid budget in Europe. A fourfold increase in aid spending over the next seven years will bring us to the point where we will begin meeting our international obligation, as laid down by the UN to all member-states, to devote 0.7 per cent of annual GNP towards overseas development co-operation.

Our spending on Overseas Development Assistance will grow from £208 million this year to £800 million by 2007. This will transform our ability to make a real difference in global human development.

However, it is crucial that Irish people, as taxpayers and voters, are invited to take ownership of the national aid programme, Ireland Aid, and its historic potential.

Alongside this placing of development issues higher in Irish government policy has come the open challenge to our own prejudices posed by refugees, asylum-seekers and economic immigrants. Ireland is a long-standing member of the international donor community: now we face the causes and reality of refugees and economic migrants on our own doorstep.

Given the renowned Irish public support for helping the poor and dispossessed abroad, the less than enthusiastic response in some quarters to refugees seeking our assistance here in Ireland suggests a gap in our moral logic. Celebrating the achievements of our own diaspora rings hollow when many are begrudging towards the 21st-century diaspora turning up here.

This season is perhaps a good opportunity for all of us to ponder on the Christian message of kindness to the stranger.

Now that our Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) has at last been placed on a secure footing, we have a solid foundation upon which to build on the existing strengths of the Ireland Aid programme. In response to this expanded budget, a review of the policy aid programme is about to begin.

The review group will include independent experts, representatives from Government and input from NGOs, multilateral agencies, developing countries themselves and the Oireachtas. The public will be invited to make submissions also.

In chairing this review as Minister, I intend to establish a sense of real public ownership in the Ireland Aid programme, so that the people, on whose behalf Ireland Aid works, share its goals and impact and more fully understand its complexities. The review will examine how best Ireland Aid can contribute in making a reality of the vision of a world, which is less hungry, less violent, a world of peace and security.

Our overseas development co-operation also requires more coherence with other policy areas such as foreign trade, environment, international debt, migration and refugees and peacekeeping. The review will address such coherence. It will be a radical, constructive and consultative exercise.

Our bilateral programme focuses on six priority least-developed countries in southern and eastern Africa: Lesotho, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and Mozambique. More recently, East Timor was added to this list, and the review will examine which other countries would be appropriate for us to concentrate on.

On one level, Ireland Aid is about crisis intervention and humanitarian aid. This will remain a crucial part of our work, and we will continue to respond with compassion and generosity to assist those who fall victim to natural and manmade disasters or crises.

However, Ireland Aid is also about enabling developing countries and peoples to tackle the root-problems of poverty and global inequality. There is no quick fix for the necessary political and economic changes which would guarantee a perfect future for the world's vulnerable peoples.

The development landscape is pitted with the remnants of failed projects, designed in the developed world and implemented with little thought for local institutions, procedures or consultation. Ireland's approach is resolutely based on partnership and poverty reduction.

The time is now right for us to renew and refresh our understanding of the complex political, economic and social issues in overseas development. Ireland Aid is the people's aid programme. It is precisely their ownership of the programme that provides the best guarantee of its future budgetary security and impact beyond 2007.

Irish people and the Government bring to ODA a race memory of famine and chronic underdevelopment. We now have a privileged and unprecedented opportunity to play a major part in global human development.

The challenges that lie ahead are still enormous - 12 million children under the age of five die each year in developing countries, with malnutrition accounting for over half of those deaths. An estimated 1.3 billion people live on less than $1 a day. Over two-thirds of the Earth's population, a staggering 4.5 billion people, do not survive beyond 40 years of age.

Ireland Aid will continue to work in partnership with some of the world's poorest countries and peoples. Because we were so recently poor ourselves, we can help the global poor in the most respectful way.

Liz O'Donnell is Minister of State for Overseas Development Co-operation & Human Rights