An aid package of more than €7 million has been announced for Sudan, Sierra Leone and Liberia, by the Minister of State for Development, Conor Lenihan.
The total sum of €7.2 million will go to a number of countries around Africa, though the bulk will go to the three sub-Saharan countries. It will be channelled through several NGOs including Concern, Trócaire, Medecins Sans Frontier (MSF) and the International Rescue Committee.
Meanwhile, the Conference of Religious in Ireland (CORI) has called on the Government to set 2010 as the target date to achieve its UN commitment to allocate 0.7 per cent of GNP to overseas development assistance (ODA).
The €7.2 million aid package, announced yesterday by Mr Lenihan, is in addition to the €1 million announced last week by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, for the African Union Mission in Sudan.
Mr Lenihan said yesterday the funding was to "save lives, protect vulnerable people and alleviate the suffering of victims of conflict and disaster in some of the world's most-troubled countries". Giving examples, he said funding would go to Concern in Liberia to meet emergency needs in water, sanitation and health and to provide shelter for over 90,000 people displaced by the long-running civil war.
In the Darfur area of Sudan, funds would be channelled through Oxfam to help pay for the drilling of wells, the installation of latrines, and public health training in refugee camps, said Mr Lenihan. "And in Sierra Leone, we are funding MSF in a health programme that will benefit an estimated 322,000 people with an emphasis on pregnant women and children under five."
Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Cote d'Ivoire will also benefit.
Despite the announcement, the Justice Commission of CORI has criticised the Government for "reneging on its Third World aid commitment". In a submission to the Government on its forthcoming White Paper on Overseas Development Assistance, it says "poverty is the major injustice in a world that is not, as a unit, poor.
"Now, more than ever, as Ireland becomes more prosperous, the Irish Government should reach the UN ODA target and exercise its voice within the European Union and in world institutions to ensure that the elimination of poverty becomes the focus of all policy development."
Spokesman for CORI, Fr Sean Healy, said Ireland should commit to reaching the UN target of contributing 0.7 per cent of GNP to overseas development assistance by 2010, "three years later than originally planned".
