Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

I do not query the reference in the information pack to the achievement of the 0.15% target. It is extraordinary, however, that the booklet does not contain a simple sentence saying that the Government will announce shortly the year in which it proposes to achieve the UN target of 0.7%.

I am afraid that the international concentration on the poorest countries in the world, which are in sub-Saharan Africa, is not working in the manner suggested by the Minister of State. Some 227 million people in the region were living on $1 each per day in 1990, but that had increased to 313 million people by 2001. The average income of a person in the 33 countries of sub-Saharan Africa is $270 per year, or 71 cent per day. Ireland could have made a great impact on the lives of such people by spending all the money needed to achieve the 0.7% target in sub-Saharan Africa. We could have spent such money on the HIV-AIDS world millennium development goal project, for example.

It has been suggested at some of the meetings throughout the country that Ireland might not have been able to spend 0.7% of GNP if the Government had achieved that target. That suggestion does not contain an ounce of sense, however. If one is producing a booklet outlining the work of Development Co-operation Ireland in the knowledge that the 0.7% target will not be met by 2007, one should have the honour to state in the booklet that the matter is under discussion and the new target year will be announced shortly.

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