Ireland among best countries for meeting aid promises

Ireland has been ranked sixth out of 22 OECD countries in meeting its commitments on providing aid towards basic education in poorer countries.

The rankings have been drawn up by the Global Campaign for Education, an international group that lobbies governments to meet their promises to make free basic education available to all people.

Some of the world's richest nations have received a very poor assessment of their performance, with Japan, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Australia, the US and Austria all at the bottom of the table.

Sweden, Norway, Luxembourg and the Netherlands all receive the highest rankings.