O'Donnell renews overseas aid challenge

The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs renewed her challenge to the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, over funding for overseas development.

During a 90-minute debate on the effects of Hurricane Mitch on Central America, Ms Liz O'Donnell told deputies there was cross-party support for the State's international obligation to reach aid targets.

"They [the targets] are not negotiable," she said, as the Opposition denounced as meagre and derisory the Government's allocation of about £400,000 to the Honduran and Nicaraguan crises.

"We signed up to those targets and the percentage of GNP is the internationally recognised and agreed basis on which we decide our aid budget.

"I hope some movement will be forthcoming from the Department of Finance and the Cabinet collectively on this issue," she added.

Last week Ms O'Donnell had said she did not rule out the possibility of resignation if the Government did not stick to its commitment to raise the State's donation to overseas development as a percentage of GNP.

"We cannot cherrypick the implications of our growth," she said yesterday, warning that "the next Budget should be a caring Budget which deals with the disadvantaged here and abroad".

During the debate Fine Gael's foreign affairs spokesman, Mr Gay Mitchell, called on the Minister to introduce legislation to make it a requirement that a certain percentage of funding had to go to development aid.

"The will of this House is there to provide those funds and it should give legislative effect to that will," he said. "We should take it away from the annual estimates debacle which puts it in competition with roads and everything else required."

Mr John Gormley (Green, Dublin South East) laid a substantial portion of the blame for the hurricane at the door of multinationals. "If Hurricane Mitch was an act of God then perhaps it was substantially the act of a God who takes the form of emission-belching developed nations, which every day contribute to climate instability."

Mr Michael D. Higgins (Lab, Galway West) said the State needed to construct an adequate response to the catastrophe. "If the APSO budget were doubled and the technical skills were released into the area immediately, the issue of housing and shelter would be addressed," he said. There was an immediate need to supply beans and rice for the "food security of the ordinary population".

Ms Liz McManus (DL, Wicklow) echoed the disappointment with the Government's financial response, especially compared to other nations. "The US, which I have often criticised in the past, yesterday added $10 million to the $70 million it had already pledged," she said.