David Norris (Independent)

I wish to share time with my colleague, Senator Feargal Quinn.

The Minister of State is a decent man, as I know only too well, but he has a brass neck to come into the House and deliver that drivel. I am glad to say, however, that he looked miserable doing it and he has every right to be so. He mentioned the question of percentages. It is perfectly obvious that since the matter was expressed as a percentage he did not have to cut anything. It could be left alone and we would give the proportion that we could afford, even if it was the widow's mite. We were given promises after promises. The then Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, boasted about it at the United Nations and surely the Minister of State should be ashamed of that. He was a very enthusiastic member of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, and so were some of his colleagues, when looking for a separate budget subhead for overseas aid, looking for it to be institutionalised so that it would be crystallised year after year and we would automatically, without any opportunity to change, reach the target. I listened with horror when he was talking about the need for these changes and our duties to the people and this sort of business and rescuing our economy with these piddling cuts in the global context, at the expense of people who are going to die. I never want to hear belly-aching from the Fianna Fáil side of the House about the Irish Famine because we are doing to them what they did to us all those years ago.