Foreign Aid

ronbyrne2005

People in this country never demand their politicians to do more for the poorest people on earth. People are concerned about stamp duty on a 500,000euro house while people are struggling on the same planet on less than 500euro a year purely through accident of birth! Anyone willing to at least meet the 0.7% commitment would get my vote, we have enough in this country, in fact we have too much and we rob the doctors and nurses from the 3rd world. Some would argue that people should be allowed to make their own contributions to Aid through charitable donation but this is too often a cop out and people forget to or loose urgency to donate to those to who clean water and adequete food is a luxury. Of course greater efforts have to be made to ensure aid is well spent but this is possible as is giving a higher percentage of our gnp/gdp like the other european countries.

stepbar

In fairness Ron, the Irish are known for their generosity in giving to good causes all over the world. However, a promise is a promise and it was Bertie who stood up at the UN (AFAIK) and made this promise. You dont have to look too far to find out who is to blame.

28064212

Enda Kenny wrote:

Would you meet the 0.7% of GNP target, for aid to developing nations? We have made the point that we would legislate for the 0.7%. It is a big draw on the exchequer, but it is an important draw. I think you need to parallel that with a system of absolute accountability, so that instead of pouring money down a black hole, in some other country for charitable works, you need to see how it is being spent in the interest of those people.

Pat Rabbitte wrote:

Are you saying unequivocally that you’d meet the .7% of GNP target? Yes, we will be committing to that in our manifesto.

Source: Hotpress interviews

No idea about the other parties' opinions

edanto

In that case, I'll be voting FG or Lab. John Gormley is in my constituency, but I don't think he'll have any trouble getting in.

FF have done many great things with foreign aid over the past few years, but if the other guys are promising to do even better and I can get rid of the cowboys that let the mortgage:salary ratio go up by about 240% on their watch, then I'll be happy with that.

beanyb

It's a disgrace that FF havent met this target yet. They just keep continually changing the deadline. It's a bit rich of them to have it in their manifesto too, since they agreed to it in the millenium goals but yet havent done anything about it.

The_Minister

According to the department of Foreign Affairs, our current OFFICIAL development assistance is €813,000,000, or 0.5%.
0.6% will be reached by 2010, and 0.7% by 2012. If current growth continues then we will be donating 1.5Billion at that year.

All other information available is in the government White Paper:
http://www.irishaid.gov.ie/whitepaper/ (From 2006, so may be slightly OOD)

gandalf

Well given that Bertie stood up in the General Assembly of the UN and lied that we would meet 0.7% of GNP says alot. Another missed promise no matter what way the Government Cheerleaders present it.