Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies for their powerful and fascinating contributions. It is heartening to hear absolute consensus across this Chamber as to Ireland's proud track record in terms of our aid programme internationally and also our utter commitment to reaching the target of 0.7% of GNI.

I do not discount for a moment that the book from which Deputy Wallace quoted is excellent - I might look at it myself - but I have just finished reading another book, namely, Factfulnessby Hans Roslin. The book to which Deputy Wallace referred seems to outline a particularly pessimistic view of the world while Hans Roslin has outlined a far more optimistic view. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between but one incontrovertible fact is that in 1965, the year in which I was born, 50% of the world's people lived in absolute poverty. Last year, that figure was down to 9%, so we are making significant progress. That is not to say we do not have to redouble our efforts constantly-----

See this speech in context