Ireland 'besmirched' by failure on aid commitment

Ireland's reputation has been "besmirched" because of the Government's failure to meet targets for overseas aid, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said this morning.

Speaking during a heated leaders' questions session in the Dáil, Mr Kenny launched a broadside on the Taoiseach saying his "word counts for nothing any more".

"What annoys me, Taoiseach is that, with no election in sight, in September 2000, you on behalf of the Irish people and the Irish Government made a solemn commitment before the eyes of the world to the United Nations assembly that your Government would achieve the UN target of 0.7 per cent of GDP by 2004," Mr Kenny told the House.

"When it became politically expedient for your Government to drop that promise and to break that commitment you did so.

"It is a pity that our reputation in the eyes of the world is now being besmirched by the fact that you broke this promise that you made on behalf of the Irish people and the Irish Government."

Responding, Bertie Ahern said he would "like to be number one subscriber to overseas aid in the world.

"We lie at about number seven or number eight in the entire world, which is an extraordinary achievement for this country and I think everybody in the country should be proud of that.

"I would have liked to have had the ability to achieve 0.7 but because of growth levels and all of the adjustments necessary we would have had have been putting in figures about 200 million to achieve that.

Mr Ahern added: "The United States of America, the biggest economy in the world, has no target. The United Kingdom ... has a target that is back further than ours. France are totally ambivalent about where they are".

Summing up, on the last leaders' questions before the Dáil summer break, Mr Kenny asked: "So what is the value of your word?"

"What does the word of this Taoiseach mean?

"What did it mean in terms of the health services where €50 billion has been spent since 1997 and yesterday there were 257 patients lying on trolleys around the country?

"What does your word mean in terms of the commitment given for 2,000 extra gardai while the Minister for Justice can smirk over here? He should have been out in Raheny last night listening to the public speak.

"What does your word mean in terms of broken promises on class sizes which this minister now says has become a 'nobel aspiration'?

"How can we believe anything from this Government, when in respect of the poorest people of the world you Taoiseach stood up in front of the eyes and nations of this world and said it would achieve it by 2007. Not only have you let the poorest in the world down, you have also let the people down at home.

"Promise after promise, commitment after committment, broken, of no value, because your word counts for nothing any more."

Mr Ahern said he "didn't know in August 2000, when the economy was growing by 11 per cent, that a year later it was going to be growing by 1 per cent."

He added: "I listen to [Labour's] Michael D Higgins, who speaks so much and so well, but you remember the government what you did, you reversed the figure."

Amid uproar in the House, Mr Higgins replied: "You were the Minister for Finance."