We are one of the world's wealthiest countries - the Government must not abandon our promises to the poorest, write Justin Kilcullen and Tom Arnold
The Government appears to be on the verge of reducing to empty rhetoric Ireland's commitment to the world's poor.
In September 2000, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern made a declaration to the UN Millennium Summit on behalf of the Irish people. Ireland would reach the UN target of spending 0.7 per cent of its GNP on aid by 2007.
However, this week, Minister of State for Overseas Development Conor Lenihan, speaking at the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee, clearly indicated the Government was considering deferring the date to 2015 - a delay of eight years.
This September Bertie Ahern will go to the UN to review member states' progress on the Millennium Development Goals since 2000. What will he say to the 189 world leaders gathered? That Ireland has broken its promise to the world's poor? This time, let it not be in the name of the people of Ireland.
For the people of Ireland have made their feelings clear. Last October Mr Lenihan said for the first time that achieving the 2007 deadline was unrealistic. Public outrage was expressed in unprecedented levels of column inches and radio airplay dedicated to aid. This expression of public dismay and disbelief should have shamed the Government.
For the people of Ireland, giving aid to developing countries is not merely a function of having the wealth to do so. It is deeply embedded in our sense of ourselves as a nation.
Irish missionaries have been working in the poorest nations on earth for longer than "development" as a concept has existed. Concern's work in Biafra in the late 1960s brought the realities of conflict-related misery to our consciousness, and the Irish public responded with massive generosity. Trócaire's work challenging injustice and violence in South Africa and Central America in the 1970s and 1980s educated a generation, who saw that development co-operation is not just about charity, it's about justice.
Irish people have served in every major global disaster and are to be found throughout the developing world in numbers far exceeding that expected of a country our size, serving with all Irish agencies and for many years with APSO.
It is hardly a coincidence therefore that the two loudest voices in the global media on this issue are Irish: Bono and Bob Geldof. Their leadership has been widely admired. We believe the Taoiseach has the opportunity to show that the Government, on behalf of the Irish people, is providing critical leadership, within the EU and the UN, to tackle world poverty decisively.
The commitment in 2000 to reach the aid target by 2007 was made as part of a global plan to meet the Millennium Development Goals, including halving the number of people living in absolute poverty, by 2015. Developed and developing countries signed up to their separate responsibilities in working to this plan. Governance standards had to improve in many developing countries. Rich countries had to increase aid levels substantially and create fairer trading arrangements.
If the goals are to be achieved by 2015, aid levels must be doubled over the next three to five years. A UN report published last week highlighted the cost of failing to meet one of the goals, to reduce child mortality by two-thirds.
At current levels, some five million children below the age of five die annually, mostly from preventable diseases. If the goal is achieved, only two million children will die annually - a prize of three million lives.
If Ireland defers reaching the aid target of 0.7 per cent until 2015, it will miss the opportunity of providing credible leadership in the fight against world poverty. The solemn commitments made at the UN in 2000, and repeated in numerous international forums in subsequent years, will have been rendered meaningless.
There is still time to take the bold and right decisions. We believe that the government should set 2010 for reaching the 0.7 per cent target. It should set out a plan for year-onyear increases to get there.
The White Paper on Development, currently the subject of public consultation and due to be published early in 2006, can fill in the detailed roadmap.
We are all aware there are many competing priorities for domestic spending. But there is a historic opportunity to act generously and to show, as one of the world's wealthiest nations, our commitment to tackling global poverty. If the bold decisions are taken, the Taoiseach can go to the UN in September and proudly represent his Government and the Irish people.
Anything less would be a travesty of this nation's commitment to helping some of the world's most vulnerable citizens.
• Justin Kilcullen is director of Trócaire and Tom Arnold is chief executive of Concern