Third World aid agencies have strongly criticised the absence of any mention of development assistance in the Budget. The Labour Party called on the Minister of State in charge of overseas development, Ms Liz O'Donnell, to resign.
The chief executive of Concern, Mr David Begg, said the Budget confirmed "the extremely serious cutback in development aid revealed in the Estimates published two weeks ago, which will impose even more hardship on the world's poor.
"Despite Minister of State Liz O'Donnell's threat to resign and the outrage expressed by the public, the cuts have been confirmed and despite last week's announcement of new arrangements for the aid budget, no additional funding has been provided for the coming year."
Ms O'Donnell said that by putting the aid programme on a "multi-annual" budget "the annual Estimates wrangle on the aid budget is now behind us. "I firmly reject any suggestion that my announcement to the Seanad on the new ODA funding package was misleading . . . Year-to-year funding may be a normal and even satisfactory way of funding some public sector activities, but an aid programme is an investment programme which cannot be effectively managed on the basis of hand-to-mouth funding."
Last week Ms O'Donnell said that although spending on overseas aid would be frozen next year, it would increase by 66 per cent over the following three years. An additional £62.2 million in 1999-2001 would bring the total amount over that period to £400 million. Mr Begg said the absence of any increase for next year would mean that "grant in aid" for development would fall from £70.8 million in 1998 to £66.17 million in 1999, a 7 per cent cut.