John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister of State for his response. The Minister of State may be aware that a number of Irish aid agencies met with the EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid in the past couple of days. They had a concern in looking at the millennium development goals. In the health and education areas, for example, the EU has fallen way behind in its millennium development goal commitments.

The concern is that the emphasis seems to be shifting to a trade agenda from a purely aid agenda. In some of the categories the percentages are very low compared to set targets. Will the Minister of State respond to this or indicate the kind of talks which have been held with his counterparts in Europe to ensure the set targets are maintained?

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