Conor Lenihan (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

I thank Members for their strong engagement with the development issues that are my responsibility in Irish Aid. I reaffirm that the White Paper is about reiterating, reaffirming and confirming our commitment to achieving our 0.7% target by 2012. One might well ask why we do not legislate for this. We have decided legislation is not a good precedent to set in this area because then the Government would come under pressure from other interest groups to legislate for their area. For these reasons, it is deemed inappropriate to legislate for the commitment.

The Minister for Finance and his Department have backed our commitment with hard cash. For example, in the two years since I have been in charge of this portfolio, our emergency and recovery budget has gone from €20 million to €60 million. This is likely to increase further following the Estimates to be published at the end of the month. We are meeting our targets. When I decided to reverse the commitment of 2007, I felt it was important to set down clear milestones against which the public and the Oireachtas could gauge whether we were meeting our commitments.

These milestones were an interim target of 0.5% in 2007, 0.6% of gross domestic product, GDP, in 2010 and finally the achievement of 0.7% in 2012. We are well on the way to achieving that. For a coincidence of reasons, this year we will achieve 0.5%. This is mainly because of a contribution from the Department of Finance of €60 million, a commitment which should have been made over a number of years but which was front-loaded into one year because of a commitment to multilateral debt relief. Even when this is taken out of the equation next year, we will maintain our commitment of 0.5%.

We are meeting our targets and there is no question of the commitment not being met. I have full confidence that even if there is a change of Government, something I do not anticipate, Members opposite will be more than willing to meet the commitment. The target is realistic and achievable, whereas the previous target was neither and had to be overturned.

Senator Terry raised the issue of moneys being spent on NGOs in Central America. I visited Nicaragua, Central America and South America. It is important to remember that while Ireland concentrates its aid in eight programme countries, six in Africa and two in Asia, we support projects in approximately 128 countries. We support projects across the globe without prejudice. Much of this support is led by the good work done by our missionaries and I am sure Senator Terry saw that when she made her visit to Latin America. Our missionaries are there and they also have a footprint in Asia. We make our contributions in that area.

Senator Kitt raised the issue of Sudan. The Minister and I were answering questions in the Dáil on the issue less than an hour ago. We are anxious to facilitate a Dáil or Seanad debate on the situation. What is going on is horrific. Prime Minister Blair has organised a conference which it is hoped will have some effect. The Minister and I have been to Darfur where we have met Ministers and Prime Ministers. However, as the Minister said in the Dáil, one really needs to affect the President of Sudan if we want to achieve real change. Thankfully, he will attend the conference organised by Prime Minister Blair. We need to maintain focus and pressure on him to accept the deployment of a strong multilateral force to protect the people there. The situation has worsened.

In that context, Senator Kitt also raised the issue of security for NGOs. In the wake of the tragic death of Margaret Hassan in Iraq, I initiated a security review of our overseas aid personnel so that they would be aware of dangers in the field. Owing to recent events in Darfur and elsewhere, I am of a mind to offer the same security advice and assistance to NGO personnel when they return at Christmas. I hope to organise this during Christmas and the new year because NGO personnel work in dangerous situations where the Government and governmental actors cannot be present for various reasons.

We are keen to add to NGOs' capacity to continue their good work. It is not often pointed out that Ireland gives €100 million to NGOs every year. This money goes to Irish-based NGOs predominantly, but we also support international NGOs, such as the Red Cross, that are important in crisis situations.

I agree with Senator Norris regarding enhancing local capacity rather than bussing out Irish people. This has been the approach of Irish Aid. While domestic governments and employees of NGOs working in the tsunami-affected regions complained about people crowding in, giving unneeded blankets and providing unwanted and unfocused help, this criticism was not made about Irish NGOs, which are effective.

The mainstay of our support for the Red Cross and many international NGOs that play a part in emergency situations relates to raising local capacity. We fund the Red Cross in particular to enhance capacity locally for emergency preparedness. The approach is——