Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Vote 27 - international co-operation - covers the main elements of the Government's international development assistance programme, Irish Aid. The Vote provides the funding necessary to deliver the Department's high-level goals to contribute to the reduction of global poverty and hunger, with a particular focus on sub-Saharan Africa. We can be proud that against a background of great economic and budgetary challenge, the Government has largely managed to protect and stabilise the ODA budget over the past three years. This is recognised as a significant achievement internationally.

This year, the Government has provided slightly in excess of €600 million for official development assistance, a modest increase on the 2014 allocation. Of that total, some €476 million will be administered under Vote 27 and the remaining €125 million is made up of contributions by other Departments and Ireland's share of the EU development co-operation budget. The 2015 ODA allocation represents a significant contribution by Ireland to international development and is a clear demonstration of our commitment to the aid programme.

The Government remains firmly committed to building our aid programme and to the UN target of providing 0.7% of GNP as ODA. However, we can only make progress towards the target when economic circumstances allow. Now that the economy has resumed a path to sustainable growth, I will set out the case for building further on our commitment during 2015. Based on projected GNP figures for 2015, the expected ODA GNP percentage this year is likely to be approximately 0.4%. This will ensure that Ireland remains one of the most significant donors internationally on a per capitabasis.

On the policy and framework for action, our development co-operation programme, One World One Future, which is guided by our policy on international development, was approved and launched by the Government in 2013. This policy clearly sets out our vision for a sustainable and just world and provides a solid basis for maximising the effectiveness and impact of Ireland's efforts. Recently, we published a framework for action to guide the implementation of our policy, a copy of which I have here. This framework will enable us to strengthen the effectiveness, accountability and impact of our work to measure performance and demonstrate accountability, and is the basis of our detailed operational plans for 2015.

As Deputies are aware, the OECD development assistance committee, DAC, published its positive peer review of Ireland's aid programme last month. The review praises our aid programme, particularly its contribution to tackling hunger and poverty. It highly commends Ireland on having a clear overall vision for development co-operation and on grounding policies in the needs and priorities of our partner countries, noting that partners "value Ireland as an honest broker and a trusted and long-term partner".

The review praised Ireland's commitment to delivering its development programme according to international best practices and principles for making aid more effective. In particular, the review noted that Ireland consistently continues to punch above its weight - the committee will forgive me if the cliché is overused today - on humanitarian and resilience issues. We are carefully reviewing the recommendations in the peer review report, which will assist us in continuing to improve the effectiveness of our development during 2015 and beyond.

This year will be a critical year in the fight to end extreme poverty and hunger as we maximise progress under the millennium development goals and negotiate a new framework for international development post-2015. The new framework will mark an important shift to sustainable development with clear and ambitious goals and targets universally applicable to all countries to end extreme poverty, hunger and malnutrition in a single generation. Ireland is actively engaged at the United Nations in negotiating the new sustainable development goals. Recently, the president of the UN General Assembly appointed Ireland and Kenya to co-facilitate the final international negotiations to agree the sustainable development goals at the United Nations over the coming year. Universally, the challenge will be to build consensus among the member states on a broad and comprehensive agenda to be adopted at the major summit of world leaders in New York in September of this year.

Other priority areas for 2015 include reviewing our engagement with the UN and other multilateral organisations to ensure their priorities are aligned with ours, and enhancing our economic links with African countries, particularly our key partner countries. We will also continue to strengthen our systems across the programme to further improve management, accountability and transparency.

Ireland's aid programme has often been praised internationally for its effectiveness, its sharp focus on poverty reduction and its commitment to tackling hunger. Development co-operation is at the heart of our foreign policy. Our key objective for 2015 is to continue to deliver a world-class programme aimed at some of the world's most vulnerable and marginalised people, helping to save lives and build livelihoods. We appreciate the continued strong support and engagement of the committee, and I welcome any questions.