Joanna Tuffy (Labour)

I will speak to the Labour Party amendment. I also support the Fine Gael amendment, which is similar. The main point of the Labour Party amendment is that the Government is not keeping its targets for overseas development aid as a percentage of GNP. Unless the Government changes its policy and increases its aid for 2004, it is unlikely we will reach the UN target of 0.7% of GNP by 2007. That is an issue of concern for the country and it should be condemned. The Minister of State was quoted in The Irish Times a week ago as having said that it will be difficult to reach the UN target and that he will have to give some consideration to the timeframe over the coming months. That is worrying. The Taoiseach committed himself to the UN target as recently as September and it was also part of Ireland's campaign to win a seat on the UN Security Council a few years ago.

There has not been any progression of the Government's target. It is the opposite of what Senator Ormonde said. There is no point trying to blame the NGOs, as Senator Ormonde seemed to do. This is part of the Government's stop-go approach to current public spending. That is a cynical approach which undoes the good done by the Government in its development aid programme. The momentum has been lost in terms of the implementation of the programme and the good work done by previous Governments is also being undone. The Government's credibility has been damaged by its failure to increase the percentage of aid. The level of aid should be at 0.48% for 2004 if the Government was committed to reaching its target.

A number of speakers referred to the success of our programmes. That is recognised in the Labour Party amendment, OECD reports and the documentation many Senators received today from Trócaire. The OECD has stated that our aid is of a high standard. Senator Norris referred to the different indicators used to draw that conclusion. There are a couple of recommendations in the documentation I received from Trócaire today, including the fact that the levels should be increased in the budget to 0.48% of GNP for 2004 and that the Government should commit itself to incremental increases, as outlined by Senator Browne. Trócaire and the OECD recommend that we should have a multi-annual funding arrangement for ODA allocation. Trócaire recognises the value of that approach from 2000 to 2003 to enable strategic medium-term plans as the programme expands. I ask the Minister of State to respond to the recommendations by the OECD and by Trócaire in the documentation which was sent to Senators today.