Ireland will spend €545 million on overseas aid this year, but the sum remains far off the Taoiseach's promise in 2000 at the UN Millennium Summit to reach the UN target by 2007.
For more than three decades, the United Nations has asked every developed country to contribute 70 cents of every €100 of income to the Third World.
Most countries perform abysmally. The US spends just 0.16 per cent of its income on aid - and much of that is tied to the recipient countries buying US goods.
Just five countries have exceeded the UN target: Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. Ireland contributes 41 cents out of every €100 - the ninth best performance per capita of population in the world.
The Taoiseach's 2000 promise was made when the Government was seeking a place on the UN Security Council - an election which it won partly because of its aid commitments.
Bertie Ahern repeated his "absolute commitment" to the promise in 2002 at the World Social Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa - that same year the Government failed to meet the 0.45 per cent target it had set as a halfway marker.
The 2007 target, a percentage rather than a hard cash figure, had to be dropped, Mr Ahern has argued, because the State's income accelerated so much in the years since. Aid agencies argue that it is like a man saying he could not help because he became too rich.
"We receive €391 per head of population from our neighbours in the EU and spend €94 per head on the Third World," says Justin Kilcullen of Trócaire.
The Government's contention is accepted in some quarters, however, partly because Ireland's overseas development aid would have to jump to nearly €1 billion by 2007 for the UN target to be met.
In the Dáil yesterday, the Taoiseach told the Opposition that Government was spending the same this year on Third World aid as it spent on new hospital buildings. In 1995 Ireland spent €123 million on the Third World and €157 million by 1997, by which time Mr Ahern had occupied Government Buildings.
In 2000, Ireland contributed €254 million, a sum that rose to €422 million two years later.
From there the rate of increase slowed. In 2003, overseas aid rose to €445 million and to €475 million in 2004, by which time it was known that the 0.7 per cent 2007 target would not be met.
Stung by criticism that it had welched on its word, the Government said the budget for overseas aid would jump to €545 million this year, and by €60 million and €65 million respectively for the next two years. However the extra sums are unlikely to put Ireland's offering above 0.45 per cent of its gross national income - the target it had pledged to reach in 2002.
Following Tuesday's Cabinet meeting, Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern announced a new target - to reach 0.7 per cent - would be announced before September.
So far, Department of Finance officials are objecting to the Minister's demand that Ireland should aim to reach it in 2012, rather than letting it go to 2015. For some this is a phoney war, since the aid agencies, which want 2010 set as the new benchmark, will still complain.
Nevertheless, the finance/foreign affairs negotiation cannot be taken for granted, even though the Taoiseach badly needs diplomatic cover before he travels to New York for the five-year review of the goals set at the Millennium Summit.
Though Minister for Finance Brian Cowen has stayed out of much of the haggling, it is believed he also wants a guarantee that extra aid will be used well. Development Co-Operation Ireland, the Government's aid arm, has had to learn to cope with vastly increased sums in recent years.
Good projects though can be hard to find in the Third World, where many run their course and disappear without trace.