The Taoiseach Bertie Ahern revealed 2012 as the new target date for contributing 0.7 per cent of Ireland's GNP towards Overseas Development Aid (ODA).
Mr Ahern made the announcement during his address to the UN summit of world leaders in New York today. A t the September 2000 UN Millenium Summit that the Taoiseach proclaimed that Ireland would meet the UN target for aid by 2007.
The new target date means that Ireland will reach the quota three years earlier than the agreed EU target date.
During his address Mr Ahern said: "It is an affront to our common humanity, five years after the Millennium Summit, that 30,000 children die each day from easily preventable diseases."
"Ireland is not a silent witness to this continuing tragedy," the Taoiseach said. By committing to the 0.7 per cent
target Ireland will spend up to €8 billion helping to tackle poverty and alleviate poverty in some of the world's poorest countries."
"By any standards this is a huge commitment on behalf of the Irish people," he added.
The Government had faced sharp criticism from Opposition parties and NGOs for breaking a 2000 commitment to achieve the funding level by 2007.
Fine Gael's foreign affairs spokesman, Bernard Allen, described the Taoiseach's decision to postpone the target date of contributing 0.7 per cent of Ireland's GNP on overseas aid until 2012 as a "betrayal of the world's hungry and poor".
