Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy rightly points out that we have had a significant reduction in GNP in 2008 and 2009. While I do not want to go down that road, we are dealing with a net reduction of €80 million from a very substantial budget if we factor in the 2008 reduction and the expected 8% reduction in GNP in 2009. That is the context. We were aiming for 0.54% in 2009. Owing to the reduction in GNP we actually achieved 0.58% in 2008, which puts us fifth in Europe and sixth per capita across the globe. Even though we are going back to 0.48% for 2009, we will probably still be the sixth largest in 2009.

We do not take any pleasure from this. We did not want to be in this position. Across the board there have been significant cutbacks in all programmes. There has also been a very significant drop in revenues resulting in a very tough series of budgetary decisions which affects everyone in our society and unfortunately has affected the aid programme also.

However, the underlying objective is to create a sustainable pathway for our public finances which ultimately is the best guarantee of being able to achieve our target of 0.7%. That was an Irish target. The EU target was to achieve 0.7% by 2015.

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