Bernard Allen (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)

We will share as equally as we can. While I welcome the increase in overseas aid, I remind the Minister of State, Deputy Conor Lenihan, that the target of 0.7% of GNP by 2012 represents a major shortfall in the promise made by the Taoiseach at the United Nations General Assembly, when he stated we would reach the 0.7% target by 2007. Will the Minister of State give a commitment to enshrine the 0.7% target in legislation? I know he will answer that it is a risky policy. However, if the 0.7% target is enshrined in legislation, at least there would be certainty and it would not be seen as just a pre-election promise. The Minister of State, Deputy Conor Lenihan, need not reply now — he will have ten minutes to answer later.

The Minister of State, Deputy Parlon, has left. I wish he had stayed a little longer. He spoke about decentralisation in terms of offices and buildings. It is far more important than that. We should be talking about devolution of power to the regions. With the increase in funding for overseas development, we will have a major problem with the decentralisation of Irish Aid. The last figures I got from the Minister of State, Deputy Conor Lenihan, indicated that of three principal development specialists serving in Irish Aid headquarters, none wanted to decentralise and of the 12 senior development specialists at Irish Aid headquarters none had applied to decentralise. How is the Minister of State dealing with the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General regarding the looseness in how moneys are spent?

At a time when the Minister of State is telling us about the increase in overseas development aid the Cork office of Comhlámh, the Irish association of development workers, is threatened with closure because of technicalities regarding aid applications with the EU and the Government. I ask the Minister of State to investigate immediately the proposal to close that office in Cork. It has a backup of approximately 500 volunteers and supporters and deals with a number of development issues and projects. To hear it is closing in a year when the Minister of State is announcing a major increase in funding is a total contradiction.

I welcome next Tuesday evening's debate on the situation in Darfur. I hope we will have some influence on what is not only one of the most catastrophic humanitarian disasters of our time, but is also a security disaster.

I ask the Minister of State to tell us what is happening on the decentralisation programme of Irish Aid and the effect it will have on the institutional memory of that organisation. People are genuinely concerned about what is happening and indeed what is not happening. The matter has been dealt with in a ham-fisted way. The comments of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who threatened people with certain measures unless they toed the line, in that regard were not helpful at a vital juncture.

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