The Departments of Finance and of Foreign Affairs are locked in a deep and potentially embarrassing dispute over the level of Ireland's aid to the Third World next year.
The Minister of State with responsibility for Overseas Development Assistance and Human Rights, Ms Liz O'Donnell, is resisting efforts by the Department of Finance to impose a freeze on aid spending in this year's estimates, to be published later this month.
Ms O'Donnell is insisting that Ireland has a "moral duty" to increase its aid at a time when the economy is doing so well, according to sources. She is said to be pushing for a "substantial" increase.
A failure by Ireland to increase aid levels to near the EU average, while at the same time benefiting from transfers from our neighbours, "would not go unnoticed in Europe", she said yesterday.
Speaking at the launch of the Reality of Aid report, the Minister was forced to concede that aid spending was already badly off target. Revised figures for this year show that aid spending, expressed as a proportion of gross national product, will show its first drop in six years.
Ms O'Donnell blamed this on "exceptional" growth in GNP, which had pushed earlier forecasts off target.
The drop in aid from 0.31 per cent of GNP last year to 0.29 this year effectively kills off any hope of the Government reaching its target of 0.45 per cent by the end of its term in the year 2002.
The figure for aid has been increasing up to now - to £137 million this year - but the internationally accepted measure of aid is as a proportion of GNP.
The chief executive of Concern, Mr David Begg, said aid agencies were "very distressed" about these indications. "We're hearing that the process is going into reverse rather than going forward." At this rate, the Government didn't stand a chance, he said, of reaching its targets.
"It would be greatly disappointing if Ireland was to join those countries which go to international forums to pledge their commitment to international targets for aid but which then cut back their actual spending," he said.
Ms O'Donnell said it had been noted that societies became less generous as they grew more prosperous. "We should not assume that we are immune from that trend."
The size of an aid budget was a "litmus test" of the Government's degree of commitment to civilised values and human rights. She put forward five reasons why Ireland should provide more aid: because it is the right thing to do; because aid makes a real difference; because Ireland has benefited considerably from the generosity of others; because it is in our own interest to do so; and because we can afford to do so.
In the past, Irish people escaping from deprivation and famine at home found opportunities in other countries, she pointed out. In more recent times, Ireland had benefited hugely from EU transfers, equivalent to between 4 per cent and 7 per cent of Irish GDP, she said.
"No poor country benefited from the generosity of others on anything remotely approaching this scale."
