"We have to set out a timetable for increases that is realistic and achievable. The public won't thank us if we set a deadline and failed to meet it again". So said Conor Lenihan, Minister of State with responsibility for overseas development, last week as he launched a consultative process on Ireland's development aid targets.
It fell to him to announce last October that Ireland will not be able to reach the United Nations target of 0.7 per cent of gross national product by 2007, as was repeatedly promised by the Taoiseach at international fora since he first gave the undertaking in September 2000 at the UN millennium summit. At present the figure is 0.39 per cent of GNP, which means that Ireland spends 39 cent out of every €100 of national wealth on the poor of the developing world - about €418 million last year.
Mr Lenihan now suggests that 2012 is a realistic date by which 0.7 per cent might be achieved, three years ahead of the official UN deadline. The Cabinet is to decide on a timetable before it is announced and a public consultative process is being launched on Ireland's aid programme which will feed into a White Paper on the subject.
Such a process is welcome and necessary. But it must include consideration of whether the 2012 date is indeed realistic and achievable - or falls shamefully short of past commitments and the public support for them.
Development groups and opposition parties were furious at the Government's U-turn. But Mr Lenihan and other Ministers argued that it was made necessary by the phenomenal growth in the economy, followed by a downturn during which there was much more competition for public funds from domestic expenditure on health and education. Implicitly or explicitly they have questioned the real public support for the ambitious target of achieving the 0.7 per cent target by 2007 - and even the desirability of large flows of aid which might not be readily absorbed by its recipients. At current levels of growth this would represent some €1,000 million per annum by then. Were the target to be achieved by 2012, given the latest optimistic projections for the economy, it could be double that figure.
Such levels of expenditure do indeed raise real questions about effective management and delivery of the resources involved. But the official aid programme has a good record with delivery and is well targeted on some of the poorest states, especially in Africa. As Ireland becomes one of the world's richest countries we owe it to ourselves to debate these issues honestly and to match our rhetorical commitments to our financial ones.