‘State failing to fulfil overseas aid aims’

THE Government is failing impoverished people and putting lives at risk through its failure to fulfil its commitments to Third World Aid, the Conference of Religious of Ireland Justice Committee said yesterday.

The group’s director, Fr Sean Healy, said the Government should set a new deadline of 2010 to achieve its targets in relation to relief funds for developing and under-developed countries.

The CORI Justice Commission also made a submission to the Government on its forthcoming White Paper on Overseas Development Assistance (ODA), and in it claimed “poverty is the major injustice in a world that is not, as a unit, poor”.