Geldof angry over Govt's broken aid promises

The Government’s failure to keep its promises on aid to the developing world is shameful, rock star and humanitarian Sir Bob Geldof said today.

Geldof was speaking following the launch of the report by Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa which recommends a doubling of aid to the continent.

Ireland announced in its 2005 budget that it would not reach the UN target of donating 0.7% of Gross National Product by 2007.

The commitment had been made by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern at the Millennium Summit in New York in 2000.

Sir Bob Geldof said today that Ireland should go back to its promise of 0.7%.

“Now that we are well-off, please let’s spare us going into this economic trickery, these false broken promises.

“It ill-becomes us,” he said.

“We have a specific role to play within Europe, we have a serious voice, a dynamic economy, a people who’ve moved out beyond Africa and the rest of the world.

“Go back to what we’ve said, let’s not break our word – it’s shameful,” he said.

Sir Bob Geldof said that a doubling of aid was an appropriate response to poverty in Africa and that the Irish position was a “cop out”.

“The excuse used is called ‘absorbed to capacity’, and by that they mean Africa literally can’t absorb the increases in aid,” he said.

“The Africans themselves have said they can’t take more than a doubling of aid, because their institutions and structures are so weak that that money would just be lost.

“The amount of money needed to build those institutions and structures is more or less a doubling of aid which still makes Africa the least amount of money as a recipient of aid in the world even though it’s the poorest.

“The report drills down into this argument of filled to capacity – what exactly can Africa support in amount of aid?

“It’s a doubling, so Ireland should go back to its original position of 0.7% and beyond that,” he told RTÉ Radio.

Sir Bob Geldof said the commission’s report had made a very strong case for seeing the relationship with Africa in terms of common humanity and not economic interest.