Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I attended the Foreign Affairs Council meeting of development Ministers in Brussels on 19 May. The Council adopted conclusions on the 2014 annual report to the European Council on the EU’s development aid targets. The Council conclusions note that, despite continuing serious budgetary pressures, the EU’s collective official development assistance - from member states and the EU institutions combined - increased from €55.3 billion in 2012 to €56.5 billion in 2013. This amounted to 0.43% of EU GNI. It must be recalled that this has been done against a difficult economic background in member states but, nevertheless, the EU remains by far the largest donor of development assistance in the world. It accounts for more than half of global ODA to developing countries.

Since coming into office, the Government has demonstrated its commitment to Ireland’s aid programme and to stabilising the ODA budget to the maximum extent. In the three years 2011, 2012 and 2013, more than €1.9 billion has been provided for ODA. This is an enormous achievement in the circumstances. The Government has again managed to allocate almost €600 million to ODA in 2014. Our new policy for international development, One World One Future, makes it clear that the Government remains committed to the UN target of providing 0.7% of GNI in ODA. Having broadly stabilised the budget in recent years, we are committed to making further progress towards achieving the target as soon as economic circumstances permit.

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