Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

I join Deputy Burton in pointing out the complete hypocrisy of solemnly committing at the UN to deliver 0.7% of GNP by 2007 and reneging on that in a year when the Exchequer's revenue intake has never been stronger. In the past 12 months the Government has succeeded in collecting the equivalent of €3,000 for every household in the country, over and above what it raised the year before. It has turned around, on the back of such a revenue performance, and told the poorest of the world that Ireland cannot honour its commitments. This is wrong. What value are we to put on the solemn promises of the Taoiseach if, even in good times, he cannot honour that commitment? The Minister of State, I am sure will answer, as the Minister for Finance has done already, by asserting that Ireland is seventh in the world in terms of development aid and say that €65 million is committed over the next two years. That is true, but the whole point of the Taoiseach's statement was that Ireland was to lead the field. It was to become one of only two countries that would honour this commitment. We were going to try to lead by example and bring others with us. It is reneging on a solemn principle and this is not acceptable.

There are red herrings about the extent to which we can stand over this current initiative and assertions to the effect that this money will be well spent. I also read over the weekend that the World Food Programme is looking for €1 billion to try to deal with world hunger and it is not getting the contributions. If there is money surplus to what is committed to existing programmes, why not put it towards the world hunger programme, so that this body, which is doing vital work to save lives on a day by day basis, can deliver on its programmes. I find it hard to explain to people who ask me why this was done and why this decision was made. We all know that gross domestic product, GDP, and GNP grow. They are not stationary targets. Even by the end of 2007 we will not be at 0.5%, as Deputy Burton said. All the predictions are that we will be short of that. We will only have made a small headway towards the target. Only in one year — the year after the commitment was made — when we were looking for a position on the Security Council, was a realistic effort made to honour the commitment. Every other year there have been only token gestures. We need to take ourselves and our promises more seriously than has been exhibited in this case. I am extremely disappointed. I welcome the Bill. It is timely that the Government supports the work of this Bill. I have no general comments on any of the amendments proposed on Report Stage.

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