A commission of Ireland's Catholic bishops has described as "deeply dissappointing" the Government's decision not to meet the target of spending 0.7 per cent of GNP on overseas development aid by 2007.
It said the decision threatened "to significantly undermine Ireland's credibility as a nation that has traditionally prided itself in espousing the Christian ideal of solidarity".
The newly constituted Irish Commission for Justice and Social Affairs was launched by the Catholic primate, Archbishop Seán Brady, at St Patrick's College, Maynooth, yesterday. It came about from a merging of the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace and the Bishops' Council for Social Welfare.
It its first statement yesterday the new commission said that reinstating a binding timetable for aid commitment at the earliest possible date was "a matter of integrity for the Irish Government and the Irish people, in whose name that promise was made at the United Nations in 2000".
In the context of the forthcoming Government White Paper on development co-operation, it called for a commitment to reach the 0.7 per cent target by "no later than 2010".
It also called for publication of a multiannual timetable to achieve the commitment, based on an agreement between the Ministers for Finance and Foreign Affairs, and said legislation should be enacted "to guarantee that the overseas development aid target of 0.7 per cent is upheld".
A tome titled Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church was described by the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, at its launch in Maynooth yesterday as "a theological reading of the signs of the times".
It offered a complete overview of the fundamental framework of the doctrinal corpus of Catholic social teaching, he said.