asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he will give details of the reservation entered at the United Nations in regard to our commitment to the UN target on official development assistance; the time scale for implementing same; and the reasons why such a reservation was entered.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - UN Development Assistance Target.
6.
The International Development Strategy for the Third United Nations Development Decade, the 1980s, was adopted at the 35th Regular Session of the United Nations General Assembly in December 1980. The strategy calls on developed countries which have not yet reached the United Nations target of 0.7 per cent of GNP for official development assistance to exert their best efforts to reach it by 1985 and in any event not later than in the second half of the decade. The strategy also recommends that the target of 1 per cent should be reached as soon as possible thereafter.
During the formal adoption of the new International Development Strategy the Irish delegation, on my instructions, made the following statement:
"The Government of Ireland have accepted the 0.7 per cent aid target and intend to reach it as soon as possible, although it may not be feasible for them to do so within the specified time-frames. Although it is the Government's intention to increase ODA in the years ahead, it is not possible at the present stage for the Irish Government to envisage a commitment as regards the 1 per cent target".
This statement was made because, in the present world economic situation, it is difficult to say how rapidly it will be possible for Ireland to progress towards the 0.7 per cent target.
I should like to know why in his statements at home the Minister indicated that the 0.7 per cent target and the time scale within which it was to be reached had been accepted by him and was part of Government policy while at the same time in an unpublicised reservation to the UN he said something different?
A similar sort of reservation with regard to the whole question of development aid under the European Community was made by the previous Minister for Foreign Affairs in 1974. A similar reservation was entered into in regard to the possibility of not being able to implement certain time-framed objectives. In April 1974 the Government entered a reservation in the minutes of the Council of Ministers Development of the European Communities to the effect that Ireland could not hope to attain the target in that decade because of Ireland's state of economic development and given the different income between Ireland and other member states and the industrialised countries generally. This is consistent.
Will the Minister read on?
That is the quote.
Will the Minister read on?
I do not have it; that is the end of the quote.
Later I shall enlighten the Minister.
Apart from that it was agreed at the UN by the developed countries and the 77 developing countries, the aid recipients, to adopt this "best efforts" formula. It was agreed across the board, a unanimous decision, by all those subscribing to the said strategy that the "best efforts" formula to reach the 0.7 per cent target by 1985 was the most practical measure in the circumstances.
The Minister has not answered my question. I accept that the Minister and the Government have thrown overboard their commitments in this regard but I was anxious to know why the Minister had stated here, and throughout the country, that the target and the timescale had been accepted while at the same time entering a reservation at the UN which did not receive any publicity? Why was that done?
The Deputy is reading more into the matter than it warrants. We entered a reservation because of the realities of our present economic situation and, indeed, the realities of the world economic situation at present.
Why did the Minister not say the same thing at home as he said at the UN?
I have said it on numerous occasions in this House.
Double talk.
How is it possible, given international and domestic economic circumstances as they are, for a Government to make a firm commitment under the terms of the national understanding to make payments to certain categories of people at home and at the same time to hide behind the claim that it is not possible to do the same internationally? What is different at home and abroad that enables the Minister to promise one thing and deliver it at home and to promise but not deliver it internationally? Is it because votes are not involved?
There is an obvious answer but I will not get into an argument with the Deputy about it. The national understanding is concerned with a short span of time in which commitments can be made — the Deputy will see that picture shortly — but we are talking about international commitments over a long time span. We are talking about 1985 and 1990. In that situation surely it was sensible and practical on our part to enter a reservation?
A final supplementary from Deputy FitzGerald.
How is it possible domestically for us to make long-term commitments to our civil servants on their index-linked pensions on the one hand and not to the Third World? The logic is there but the Minister is hiding behind it.
Why did the Minister think it necessary to mislead the House by halting the quotation when he did? I have the original, in my own handwriting, of what I said at the meeting of the Council of Ministers and the Minister ought to know, and will recollect, that it goes on to say that given the difficulties of achieving the target for the period we would, in fact, increase our share of GNP by .05 per cent per annum. That is to say that each year the ODA would be increased by .05 per cent of that year's GNP. That formula was adhered to by us with the exception of one year, 1976 — we tried to catch up thereafter — and I should like to know why the Minister suppressed that. That formula applied to the ten years of the eighties would bring us to our present figure of 0.2 to 0.7 per cent and we would not have had to enter the reservation. It looks as if the Minister is going back on the commitment I entered into on behalf of the Government in 1974 as well as misleading the House by giving a wrong statement of what he said in the UN.
We have doubled our ODA funds over the past two years and quadrupled them over the past four years but the reservation was entered into the decision of 1974 and it preceded the formula mentioned by Deputy FitzGerald. It was there initially.