The campaigners who travelled to Cologne for the meeting of the G8 last month have now had time to digest the debt relief package which was agreed by the leaders of the world's richest countries.
In dissecting the details of the G8 communique, we weighed up the human benefits and costs rather than just looking at economic formulae.
As a development agency with 26 years' experience, Trocaire knows that the burden of repaying what are essentially unpayable debts is at best condemning people to lives in poverty and at worst killing people. As governments in countries in which we work cut back on social spending to repay the interest on their debts, Trocaire is propping up the health and education facilities that are crumbling. Yet for every £1 that arrives in aid from development agencies and other sources, another £4 is leaving these countries in debt repayments.
The situation is quite simply immoral and something has to be done. The year 2000 was an ideal opportunity to put things right.
Trocaire joined the world-wide Jubilee 2000 campaign which was seeking a once-off cancellation of the unpayable debts of the developing world. We sought an approach where no country would pay a penny in debt until it had first provided for the basic welfare of its people. Only then should any country make any repayments.
This approach would ensure that lives were saved through a working health system, and future development was assured with an educated population. In adopting this model, the debts of countries such as Mozambique, Ethiopia and Tanzania would have to be written off. There simply would not be enough money to keep their people healthy and educated and also keep the bankers happy.
So, after joining a worldwide campaign, which collected 17 million signatures, including 800,000 in Ireland, Irish campaigners travelled to Cologne awaiting a response from the world's richest countries.
The response was disappointing. Let's look at what we wanted and what we have got. Some $70 billion has been earmarked for debt relief which will kick in over a number of years. More countries have been categorised as Highly Indebted Poor Countries.
It seems a generous package and from the limited perspective of finance ministers and officials from the international financial institutions, it is a windfall. But it is a failure. The money allocated is not enough to wipe out debts that can never possibly be repaid and we have seen no explanations on how the $70 billion was calculated.
It will take a number of years for any benefits to be felt on the ground - time when another generation will be lost due to poor health care and no education.
What we have in essence is a strengthened Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative. This is a debt relief programme, run by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which aims to restructure a country's economy so that states can pay their debts. The initiative has been widely criticised - internally and externally - on many fronts. Many of its programmes have collapsed and the conditions it imposes cause human misery.
It has failed. We have no reasons to have confidence in the revised programme that will emerge as a result of this package. So what now?
Debt cancellation is a moral issue. It is a matter of life or death for one billion people worldwide. The debt crisis has been called a "silent holocaust" which is steadily killing women and children.
Trocaire will not be fazed. We will continue to mobilise public support and political will to bring about a meaningful solution to this crisis.
The situation in countries such as Honduras demands that we continue our efforts. Some 15 years ago, Honduras borrowed $80 million to build a hydro-electric dam to improve socio-economic conditions in the country. By last year, it had repaid $264 million - three times the amount of the initial loan. And it doesn't end there. Experts reckon it will take 46 years to finally clear the loan.
Meanwhile, $1.5 million leaves Honduras every single day in debt repayments, while less than 30 per cent of Honduran children go on to secondary school and people survive on an annual income of £330.
The director of the main hospital in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, recently told Trocaire's Sally O'Neill that he had spent his 1999 allocation for medicines in the first six weeks of the year. What kind of medical care will the people of Honduras receive in the coming months?
In the meantime, the country is trying to recover from the widespread devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch last year. At least 800,000 people are still homeless and as many as 500,000 children have not returned to school. Yet money that should be invested in rebuilding is still leaving the country.
The Irish Government must take a lead on this issue. In talks with Archbishop Oscar Rodriquez of Honduras, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, expressed an appreciation and sensitivity to the cause for debt cancellation.
While Ireland does not hold any debts, our voice will be listened to. While lobbying the World Bank and the IMF in April 1998, I was surprised at the level of interest officials had in Ireland's position on this issue.
What's more, the Government has a mandate. Some 800,000 people signed the Jubilee 2000 petition. Almost one in four of the population wants action on this issue. The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, will represent Ireland at the annual general meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington next September. He must reflect the will of the Irish people and push on a political level for a final solution before or in the year 2000.
This crisis will only be solved if there is political will. The allies, including members of the G8, spent an estimated $7 billion on the two-month bombing campaign in Serbia. Surely, they can stomach the extra cost of debt cancellation to save millions of lives.
How many child deaths do we need to see before we will finally be shamed into action?