Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I move an amendment to the Order of Business, namely, that the first item we should discuss is the Government's reneging on its pledge to meet the UN target on overseas development aid by 2007. The Estimates may provide a blanket to cover this issue. This is not just a question of abandoning the poor of the world but how the world sees a Government which feels free to make solemn pledges at a variety of international fora, to win votes to get itself onto the UN Security Council and abandons that pledge without so much as blinking when it becomes inconvenient.

I am concerned that I cannot now trust my Government. How can the DUP trust a Taoiseach who goes to the UN and solemnly makes a promise to do something and then comes home and abandons it because it is a bit difficult? How can Ian Paisley trust the Government when the going gets rough with the sort of people who are carrying out surveillance on Ministers? As the Government has undermined our capacity to trust it, I call for a debate on the reneging of the foreign aid target of 0.7% of GNP.