Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In terms of our historic experience as a country, the Famine had a huge impact on our collective memory. We have always had a strong empathy with people and countries facing famine, hunger and poverty. There are almost 1 billion people living in the world who are undernourished and lack basic nutrition. Our aid programme is literally saving lives. It is helping to feed hungry people and ensuring that babies and young children survive the critical first 1,000 days. That is an initiative we took jointly with the United States which has now been mainstreamed, namely, the Scaling Up Nutrition movement. I refer to the work we have done as a country in saving lives and rescuing people from the scourge of the HIV-AIDS pandemic and the work we are doing in providing basic education and health services, building on the heroic work done by religious missionaries over the decades. We have a great record in that regard and Irish people have shown great generosity time and again, even in difficult times, when we see humanitarian crises in different parts of the world.

We are committed to the 0.7% target, and it is critically important that we keep that target firmly in sight. However, we must be realistic about our prospects of achieving it in the current economic circumstances. The level of aid for next year will be a budget matter but we can be proud of the fact that in difficult times as a country we have maintained our faith and commitment with the poorest people of the world.

See this speech in context