Labour would meet 0.7 per cent aid target by 2010
Labour in government would meet Ireland's Overseas aid target two years ahead of the Government's latest commitment says Michael D Higgins.
The Labour Party has said it would ramp up aid spending in government to meet the 0.7 target by 2010, not 2012.
Michael D Higgins, Labour spokesman on foreign affairs, said it was Labour policy to reach the target of giving 0.7 per cent of GNP in overseas aid by 2010. He dismissed the Taoiseach's commitment, announced at the United Nations in New York on Wednesday 14 September, to reach the target by 2012, as an attempt "to shift the attention to what an alternative government will do". The Taoiseach had "welched" on the initial target of 2007, which was within his term of office, he said, and an alternative government involving Labour would replace this with a target of 2010.
Since the 2007 target was abandoned late last year, the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee has unanimously recommended to the Government that 2010 be set as the new target. This was also endorsed by the key aid agencies.
Assuming the target is met by 2012, the five-year delay on the Taoiseach's original commitment will have cost poor countries €1.1 billion in forsaken aid, based on figures provided by development advocacy group, Dóchas.
Progress towards the Millenium Development Goals, designed to half extreme poverty by 2015, is badly off track because of the failure of the international community to commit sufficient funds. The 0.7 target is seen as a key plank of the international campaign to boost international development funding.
Amongst recent appeals from UN agencies for urgent funding, an appeal to provide food aid for 4.2 million people in Malawi faces a shortfall of $65 million; while the World Food Programme this year faces a shortfall in funding for refugee food aid programmes of $219 million, and the High Commission for Refugees faces a shortgall of $181.5 million.
Richard Bruton, Fine Gael deputy leader and finance spokesman, said the party had not yet done the costings for meeting the target in either 2010 or 2012. However, he said that he favoured legislating to ensure the target was met.
"If you don't legislate, the vagaries of competing for public funding mean it could get squeezed out", he said. "If we make an international commitment, we should put in place the means to deliver it."
It is also Labour policy to enshrine the target in legislation, announced in a bill published in June this year.
Michael D Higgins said the Taoiseach's new commitment "will be construed by those who represent the poorest of the poor in the world as a significant retreat from the original pledge. It also calls into question his commitment to Ireland and the European Union achieving the Millennium Development Goals agreed in 2000."
He accused the Progressive Democrats of having "abdicated their responsibilities to be the watch guards of Fianna Fáil on this issue".
"If the PDs, and their representatives at the cabinet table, had wanted to achieve their position on Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) and to fight on behalf of the world's poorest, they have had ample opportunity to do so. It is clear that their two senior ministers, the Tanaiste and Minister for Justice Michael McDowell, have either not bothered or totally failed to make this case."
Fine Gael's foreign affairs spokesman, Bernard Allen, said "legislation must be introduced to ensure that the amount pledged is actually given to the world's poor. In light of the Government's record of broken promises on overseas aid, this legislation is a necessity."
The Government has said it will not introduce legislation to this effect.
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