Conor Lenihan (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

I will try my level best to maintain this area of responsibility. There is cross-party support that we should achieve the 0.7% target by 2012. While other parties may have liked to see it reached earlier, when I took this job, I decided the target time had to be reframed because it was not realistic. Legislating for it has been raised by several Deputies but I am not sure whether it would be helpful.

The Department of Finance is tracking percentages and not looking at increases in cash or volume of aid. According to GNP as it stands at the start of the Estimates process, the Department allocates the percentage amount that meets the requirement to reach the 0.7% target. In New York, when the new timeframe of 2012 was set, two benchmark figures were set down that we would have to reach if we were to prove our sincerity in meeting the final target. These are milestone dates — to achieve 0.5% by 2007 and 0.6% by 2010.

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