89 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs his intentions in relation to the bilateral and multilateral aid programmes; if he foresees any extension of these programmes in 1998; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14726/97]

The Estimates for 1998 have still to be negotiated but I am confident that the amount of money allocated to official development assistance in 1998 will show a substantial increase. The action programme for the millennium has set the interim target that Ireland's official development assistance will reach 0.45 per cent of GNP by 2002 on the way to reaching the UN target of 0.7 per cent of GNP. The ODA allocation for 1998 will take the first step in the increase towards that target.