Source: Plan Ireland website

The Director of the United Nations Millennium Campaign, Salil Shetty, has called on the Irish government to honor its pledge to spend of 0.7% of national income on overseas development assistance.

He was referring to a pledge which was made at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000 by the then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

Speaking at an event hosted by Plan Ireland in The Westin Hotel, Mr. Shetty said that “Ireland has a proud tradition of providing overseas assistance, but in recent years it has slipped back from achieving the Millennium Development Goal [pledge of allocating] 0.7 % of national income [to foreign aid].”

He appealed to Finance Minister Brain Lenihan, who also spoke at the meeting, to do all in his power to ensure that Ireland “gets back on track” to reach this figure by 2015 as promised.

He said that overseas aid should not be regarded as a hand out but an investment. He cited the case of Haiti which had been starved of international investment for decades, even though its need was well known.

As a result, Haiti suffered far more than it should have in the recent earthquake and the cost of refurbishment is expected to run to many billions of dollars. He contrasted this to the situation in Chile, which suffered a similar strength earthquake in February but suffered far less because it was much better prepared.

Minister Lenihan had some warm words of praise for Plan Ireland, saying that “…despite being a relative newcomer, it has established itself as a key development NGO, and has captured the imagination of the Irish people by promoting the rights and welfare of children and women in some of the poorest countries in the world…”

He went on to say: “The Government’s cooperation with Plan Ireland, through Irish Aid, reflects our respect for your valuable work, and our commitment to working with civil society to ensure a strong, coherent Irish contribution to development, based on the achievement of clear results…”

“Last year Ireland was the 7th most generous donor internationally in per capita terms, and the sixth in the European Union,” he said. “We will again this year be ahead of most of our EU partners in making progress towards the 2015 target…”

He said that it is important that Ireland’s development cooperation program demonstrate results.

“The real test of our development program is in the visible changes in the lives of men, women and children in Africa and the developing world. It is through concerted action and working together that we can best tackle poverty.”

Download Minister Lenihan’s Speech: