Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I thank Senator Browne for allowing me to share his time. I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I am delighted that he is in the position in which he finds himself. I know his heart is in the right place and that he intends to do a great deal. I hope he manages to achieve a great deal in his time. In supporting this motion tonight, the words we use will help him.

Let me first deal with a few red herrings. It is a red herring to suggest, as has been done, that we could not spend the large amount of money involved in increasing our overseas aid to the 0.7% target by 2007. If there was any difficulty in ramping up the bilateral aid programme to this level by 2007, the obvious solution would be to spend any surplus through the many multilateral aid channels that are available. Spending money in that way involves no more than simply writing a cheque. Another red herring is to suggest that our basic promise remains in place, but that we have just shifted the date by which it is to be reached. This is blatant nonsense. An integral part of the promise was the timescale. Vague, undated targets have been set many times before, both by ourselves and by others. This promise was different because there was an unequivocal time commitment written into it. By removing the time element, we make the overall promise meaningless.

A third red herring is the suggestion that somehow we cannot afford to live up to our original promise. That was the justification for cutting overseas aid in 2002, when the Government tried to row back on its pre-election over-spending. It might have made some sense in the context of the uncertain economic outlook which prevailed in 2002. However, it makes no sense at all now. We are back on course as one of the richest countries in the world, as the Government is pleased to tell us. The Exchequer has money coming out of its ears. To put on a poor mouth at this stage of the game is simply not credible.

With those red herrings out of the way, let us move on to ask what this fuss is all about. After all, political promises are not worth much in anyone's currency. Part of the reason the political process is held in such low regard is the cavalier attitude that politicians of all political hues take to their promises. The problem here is the nature of the promise, to whom it was made and on whose behalf it was made. When the Taoiseach stood up at the United Nations in 2000 and first made this solemn commitment, he was not speaking in a personal capacity. He was not speaking as the leader of the Fianna Fáil Party or even as the head of the Irish Government. On that occasion, he was speaking as the leader of the Irish people. It was on behalf of the people that this promise was made and not on behalf of the Government, Fianna Fáil or on his own behalf. That was why I felt a tremendous surge of pride when he spoke at the United Nations and made this commitment. It is why I, along with a large number of other people in this country, feel a sense of deep shame and betrayal now that the solemn promise has been reneged on.

What made matters worse was to whom this promise was made. This was not a little local promise made to a few supporters at a political meeting. It was not even a commitment made to the nation generally, either through the Dáil or a public pronouncement. Instead it was a promise to the whole world, in particular to the poor peoples of this world who were foolish enough to be taken in by it. What makes this different as a promise was what it was all about, the most important challenge facing the world today — how to cope with widespread poverty in a world of plenty. That promise was a beacon of light in a world of darkness.

It was a recognition that something could be done about world poverty and that Ireland could play a part in leading the charge. By making this promise and living up to it, Ireland could aspire to a kind of moral leadership that is out of proportion to our size or our resources. It was a promise that resonated perfectly both with our history as a colonised State and with our traditional values of caring for our fellow man. By reneging on the promise, we have lost that opportunity and perhaps we have lost it for ever.

If we had never made the promise, no one might have noticed. Given that we did make it, and make it so publicly and so solemnly, we cannot but lose in moral standing if we back down on it now. This is a promise that we simply cannot afford to break. I appeal to the Government to rethink its approach to this issue. If nothing else, it should reflect on the contrast between the spontaneous generosity demonstrated by the people after the tsunami disaster and the small minded mean spirited thinking that produced this failure to meet our commitments.

I listened to Senator Mooney and I understand the point he made. We are fourth in line in overseas aid spending, but that is not the point. It is easy to say that we are generous as things go. We made a promise and we can afford to keep it. It is not a question of saying that we are generous compared to others. The fact that the US and Japan have not lived up to anything like what we have done is not the point. We made a promise. We owe it to the poor people of the world and to those who listened to that promise.