Former minister of state Liz O'Donnell said she fundamentally disagrees with the Government's decision to prepare a White Paper on development aid, suggesting it is being done to distract from the reneging on a Cabinet commitment on the matter.
At the Oireachtas foreign affairs committee yesterday Ms O'Donnell said there was no need for the White Paper, as there had already been a "total review of the aid programme" when she was the minister of state responsible.
What was needed now was a new sense of urgency about reaching the target of 0.7 per cent of GNP for overseas development aid by 2007, something the Taoiseach promised five years ago.
Her successor Conor Lenihan said last year that Ireland would not now meet this target. However, he said yesterday the Government would decide in the next few months on a new target date, and his personal preference was for 2012. The Government is considering a proposal to that effect, but Ms O'Donnell said yesterday the timeframe should be shorter.
Mr Lenihan told the committee that the White Paper process he announced some months ago was justified. He acknowledged that a report on the matter had been done in Ms O'Donnell's time, but that "remains essentially a report. A White Paper, on the other hand, is a statement of official Government policy. We have never had a White Paper before".
Ms O'Donnell said: "I fundamentally disagree with the need for a White Paper on aid at this moment in time. I feel that all of the preparatory work was done for the purposes of the Cabinet decision which was reached when I was minister of state. I feel that there is a certain amount of justification going on for what I believe was a very disappointing decision of the Government to renege on the decision of the previous government to reach the target set by the UN."
That decision had been made by the Cabinet and "announced to the world by the Taoiseach, representing Ireland, in a very distinguished forum at the UN. It was made in full knowledge of the implications for Ireland".
The Taoiseach will attend the UN General Assembly in New York in September, at which the goals set at the UN Millennium Summit would be re-examined.
"The only way we are going to spare the blushes of Ireland internationally and also the only way we are going to honour Ireland's commitment to the world's poor" is to set a new, short timetable to realise that commitment.