Government to set aid target date

The Government will announce in the autumn the new deadline for reaching the UN target of 0.7 per cent of GNP to be spent annually on overseas develop-ment aid.

The decision will be made in advance of the UN millennium summit in September, according to the Government amendment to the Green Party private members' Dáil motion on overseas development aid.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern told the debate that in 1997 the State spent "about €39 for every man, woman and child on our development programme. This year we will spend about €136."

That represented an increase from €158 million to €545 million, which was "on top of the personal donations made by Irish citizens to the developing world".

"It is worth noting that none of the G8 donor countries provides the same level of aid per capita as Ireland," the Minister said.

"On average they provide 0.21 per cent of their GNP in aid, just over half the level of aid achieved by Ireland."

He was speaking during a debate in which the Green Party called on the Government to outline its policy proposals, criticised the failure to meet its original target deadline of 0.7 per cent by 2007, announced at the UN millennium summit in 2000.

The motion focused on aid, trade and debt cancellation, the need to put brakes on the global trade in arms, social justice, environmental degradation and climate change.

Dan Boyle, the Green Party finance spokesman, said it was a "great disappointment" that the Government could not meet the 2007 deadline and it was a "frustration" that the Government did not set a new deadline and there was "a great deal of disillusion-ment" that the Government had not put in place any mechanism as to how this target would be reached.

Mr Ahern said, however, that over the next three years Ireland will spend €1.8 billion on development assistance, but "I don't say this to detract from the UN target of 0.7 per cent".

He insisted that Ireland needed to meet the target. "We need a sustainable, tenable, deliverable target. We won't be rushed because this is serious business."

Mr Ahern said Ireland's aid was focused on some of the world's poorest countries and that the State spent more of its aid on low income countries than any other country apart from Portugal.

"We are one of only six countries which spend more than 0.15 per cent of GNP on the least developed countries," he said.

John Gormley (Green Party, Dublin South-East) said the Taoiseach had committed at the UN in 2000 to meeting the 0.7 target by 2007. At the U2 concerts at the weekend he was "deservedly booed by the crowd" when his name was mentioned, "because most Irish people recognise that it was a cynical ploy to get on the [ UN] Security Council".