Derek McDowell (Labour)

I thank all those who contributed to the debate, which has been interesting and useful, a measure of the commitment on all sides of the House to meeting the goals set by the Government at the earliest opportunity. A number of interesting points were made to which I wish to refer briefly.

Senator Feeney made an interesting and thoughtful contribution, although I profoundly disagree with her last comment. She said rightly, however, that this is not just about money. Other serious issues arise about governance, corruption, money being siphoned off and trade which impact seriously on development in the Third World, but we should not use those issues as an excuse not to spend money because money is also essential. We can achieve a great deal by writing the cheque. Debt relief is largely about writing the cheque. Providing the drugs that are life-saving in many African countries is about writing the cheque.

There are issues with capacity which relate in no small measure to our ability, for example, to provide the staff in Development Cooperation Ireland — that was mentioned during the course of the debate — but they are not such as to prevent us meeting the target set by the Taoiseach or act as an excuse for not making the sort of progress we should be making. Senator Mansergh made an interesting point when he said that Governments over the years had difficulty meeting the targets. He is right. Government after Government set targets and missed them. Perhaps we are thinking about this issue in the wrong way. In a sense we are thinking about it as being the cream on the top of the milk. If we can spend whatever we want on every domestic programme on which we want to spend money, we will use whatever is left over for the poor of the Third World.

I genuinely thought the Taoiseach's commitment in 2000 signalled a shift in priorities and political will in that from then on we recognised that this was a priority all of us wanted to meet and would meet. That has been the major failing of the past five years because it is clear that political will no longer exists. That is a great pity because the reality is that domestic demand will always be greater. There will always be something we can put higher on the priority list than the poor of the Third World. The only way to deal with it is to say, in legislation or otherwise, that this is a firm commitment which we will meet come what may.

It is a pity the Minister of State repeated the two central excuses that were offered by Government in explaining the reason it has resiled from this commitment. He said, yet again, that unforeseen economic circumstances intervened at some point between 2000 and now to explain it. That is simply not true.