Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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167. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the cost of reaching the 0.7% ODA and GNP target from its current base of approximately 0.3% in incremental steps, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [50951/17]

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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The Government is strongly committed to Ireland’s overseas development co-operation programme and to its place at the heart of our foreign policy. Our policy for International Development, “One World, One Future”, clearly articulates our commitment to the UN target of providing 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) in Official Development Assistance (ODA), as economic conditions allow.

The current Programme for Government sets out our ambition to make progress towards the UN target as resources permit. This progress needs to be made in a sustainable and manageable way, building on Ireland's recognised role as a reliable and effective partner in contributing to ending global poverty and hunger, and in providing humanitarian assistance. In order to prepare for greater progress towards the UN target, a new White Paper on Irish overseas development assistance will be produced next year.

For 2018, the Government has allocated just over €707 million for ODA, the third consecutive year ODA has increased. Based on current estimates, it is anticipated this level of allocation to deliver an ODA/GNI target of approximately 0.3%.

In line with EU member states, we remain committed to making incremental, sustainable and manageable progress towards achieving the 0.7% UN target by 2030, over the period of the Sustainable Development Goals. Reaching this target will involve significant increases to the ODA budget and requires careful planning and consultation with other Government Departments and stakeholders, which will be informed by the White Paper process next year.

The table sets out a sample stepped scenario for meeting the UN target of spending 0.7% of GNI on ODA by 2030, with interim targets of 0.4% in 2022, 0.5% in 2026 and 0.6% in 2028.

We have used forecasts for Gross National Product (GNP) as a proxy for GNI in the above calculations because GNI is only calculated retrospectively. In practice the difference between the two tends to be minimal.