Sick and starving children should be wary of Bertie’s latest aid pledge
For the second time he solemnly pledged that Ireland would reach the target of 0.7% of GNP, so the UN secretary general could be forgiven for taking it with a pinch of salt.
The first time it was promised, Ireland was lobbying for a seat on the security council, which we got with the help of our African friends.
That was about five years ago, at the UN millennium summit. Once Brian Cowen, then Foreign Affairs Minister, was installed, Bertie Ahern was quick to renege on the aid target promise.
It was a measure of his bravado that our Taoiseach had the neck once again to stand before 160 of the world’s leaders at a UN summit and pledge to increase spending to over €770 million in two years, and maybe double that figure over the next five years.
The Taoiseach had no problem in declaring to the general assembly that Ireland would meet the UN’s target of 0.7% of national income to be spent on overseas aid. This means the country will increase spending to €773 million in 2007, or 0.5% of GDP, and within another five years this will be doubled to €1.5 billion by 2012.
Playing on the world stage, he said Ireland was not a “silent witness” to the tragedy of millions of children needlessly dying, although that did not prevent him from turning a deaf ear in the last five years. But this part of the promise is not binding and depends on economic conditions and the state of the public finances.
In fact, none of it may be binding.
Only this week Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern reiterated that it was not possible for the Government to reach its previous spending target on overseas development aid because of competing demands on the exchequer.
The same argument could be trotted once again when the Government decides to abandon the new promise. They may not be in a position to deliver, in any case, because they may not be back in power. Oddly enough, the Taoiseach’s magnanimous gesture this week was largely welcomed by the major aid agencies despite the fact that they had heard it all before only to see it evaporate into an empty promise. Despite having been bitten badly once before, when Bertie announced that Ireland would reach the target of 0.7% of GNP by next year, a promise on which he promptly reneged, two of the main Irish aid agencies, Concern and Trócaire, welcomed his pledge.
Paddy McGuinness of Concern said public opinion had shown Irish people to be in favour of increasing the overseas aid budget and that this would ensure there would be no reneging on the commitment.
Mr McGuinness may have been somewhat over the top when he declared: “This announcement is a victory for the people who are living in grinding poverty in the developing world and the people of Ireland who put pressure on the Government to deliver this pledge.”
In the context of Bertie Ahern promising to deliver on reaching the aid target, the word “victory” inevitably attracts the adjective “pyrrhic.”
It is no victory, yet, for either the unfortunates in the developing world or public opinion - rather outrage - at home, and it will be years into the future before we can see if such a victory can be claimed.
Bertie Ahern has not delivered, and may never deliver. Maybe Justin Kilcullen of Trócaire might just have had a slight reservation because he called for politicians of all parties to agree to enshrine the commitment in legislation.
It would be one way to ensure there would not be a repetition of the disgraceful and dishonourable abandonment of the last target, but it would also nail down the Taoiseach in relation to this latest promise.
And he doesn’t want that.
“That’s not the way we do business,” he said at a news conference in New York when it was put to him that legislation could ensure the target would be reached.
Of course it isn’t - whether it’s the rights of people with disabilities at home or poverty overseas, this coalition Government does not want to see it on the statute book. Maybe a crozier pointed in the Taoiseach’s direction might encourage him to keep his promise this time around.
THE Primate of All Ireland, Dr Seán Brady, with his disappointment at the last episode on record, called on the Government to ensure it reaches the new target the Taoiseach announced at the UN this week.
Just as Taoiseach Bertie Ahern transmogrified himself into a socialist some time ago - between aid promises - Justice Minister Michael McDowell admitted during the week that he has something in common with Gerry Adams. He didn’t quite put it like that, but he did concede that he’s a republican. And not just any auld class of a republican but a “genuine republican”. A stamped on the back, and not made in China, variety. Now, I must admit that our Justice Minister, who is an advocate of reducing the age of criminality to 10 years (and seven in some cases), does not have the profile for what one might imagine to be a republican, genuine or otherwise.
Indeed, it might well be asked what does a republican look like.
Well, if that one ever comes up in a pub quiz, have a picture of Michael McDowell handy - there’s no shortage of them.
In a homily to republicans during the week, the Justice Minister said that true republicans must do more to reach out to the unionist community.
During the past week it would have been very difficult, if not downright dangerous, to reach out to them as loyalists and unionists flung bricks, petrol bombs and blast bombs in the streets of Belfast - and not a republican in sight.
Possibly, his Orange collar was a bit tight for him, but the Order’s grandmaster, Robert Salter, blamed everybody but his members for the violence.
He blamed the police, the Parades Commission, the British government, and even republicans, for causing the trouble at the Whiterock Parade.
The only problem with that was that Chief Constable Hugh Orde said they had video footage, which they released, showing Orangemen clearly attacking the security forces on the queen’s highway.
The self-righteous Belfast county grandmaster, Dawson Baillie, went so far as to promise more of the same in that he would do nothing differently if he had last weekend over again.
Much has been said by way of analysis of loyalist violence, which is becoming almost endemic at the moment.
When you peel away the sociological theories, it boils down to the fact that republicans and nationalists have used education and the benefits of the ceasefire to their advantage.
If you look closer still, the fact is the majority of loyalists and unionists will not face up to the fact that the North does not belong exclusively to them.
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