We must help our own first

THE recent report by the president of the Kilkenny branch of the St Vincent de Paul society Liam Heffernan, (The Irish Examiner, December 9) in which he claimed we are seeing Third World conditions in Ireland with children now scavenging in bins for food such is the dire level of poverty among some Irish families, raises the need for debate on the continuation and level of Ireland’s overseas aid programme.

We have just had the most austere budget in the history of the state imposed on us which saw significant reductions in almost all social welfare categories, including allowances to widows, carers, the sick, handicapped and disabled, the blind, children’s and job seekers allowances, reductions to the minimum wage and a host of other service curtailments.

As a nation we are now in financial bondage to the EU-IMF. We cannot be expected to tolerate a situation where many Irish children are rooting in bins for food while the state sends hundreds of millions of euro to developing countries. In addition, there is more than anecdotal evidence that much of this scarce taxpayer cash finds its way into the coffers of unscrupulous sub-Saharan governments, some of which is syphoned off by warlords. Furthermore, this money has to be borrowed and repaid at exploitative interest rates.