Foreign aid hike decision delayed

A CABINET sub-committee will decide in the coming days whether to increase Ireland’s development aid budget to 0.7% of GNP by 2012, or wait until 2015.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, Tánaiste Mary Harney, Finance Minister Brian Cowen and Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern will form the sub-committee, it is understood.

Irish aid agencies working in developing countries have been increasingly critical of the Government since it abandoned its original pledge to meet the 0.7% target by 2007. The Taoiseach made that pledge at a UN summit in New York in September 2000, at a time when Ireland was attempting to secure a seat on the UN security council.