Fergal Browne (Fine Gael)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "That" and substitute the following:

"Seanad Éireann:

–recognising the tremendous success of Ireland's Overseas Development Aid Programme;

–noting the promise made by the Taoiseach to increase ODA to 0.7% of GNP by 2007;

–condemns the Government for the failure to make any progress towards this target."

I welcome the Minister of State. We all agree that he is doing a great job but he is not receiving the backing of the full Government. It is a fair reflection of the chaos in Fianna Fáil that it picks this item to show its strengths when all it is doing is stabilising a budget and reneging on a promise. That is the reality. In a few months we will assume the Presidency of the European Union and we will have a great opportunity to lead by example. The Taoiseach, as President of the European Union, could put pressure on other EU and non-EU countries, but instead we seem to be faltering or rowing back on a very clear commitment he gave on two occasions.

At the Millennium Summit in 2000, and recently at the UN General Assembly, he said that Ireland would move towards the figure of 0.7% of GNP in its funding for official development assistance. However, his actions seem to indicate differently because instead of increasing the rate as has been the case recently, we have stalled on last year's figure at 0.41% and we are not advancing towards 0.7%. Even the OECD is openly questioning the Government's commitment, asking how can it reach the target of 0.7% by stalling this year. Trócaire and other agencies have made it very clear that they feel the figure of 0.41% is very worrying. They would prefer that we move up to 0.48% in 2004, followed by 0.55% in 2005 and 0.62% in 2006, arriving at 0.7% in 2007. Instead we remain as we were last year without even an increase to allow for inflation. That is remarkable.