By Pieternella Pieterse / Part of the European Development Policy Outlook Series
Ireland’s overseas development aid programme is, and always has been, a little different from fellow long-term EU members and neighbouring countries. Many of Ireland’s neighbours have histories of colonial occupation of counties in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Their aid programmes often continue to reflect these ties, and the reparations many countries sought to deliver after their former colonies’ independence. As a country that was long colonised, not colonising, Ireland’s development aid programme started from a place of empathy and solidarity, with an acute sense of having experienced a population decimating famine 150 years earlier.
When Ireland joined the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973, Ireland was a net recipient of Europe’s support and did not yet have an official government aid programme (Irish Aid 2024). What Ireland did have at the time, was a very active religious and lay community of volunteers who responded some of the major crises at the time; hundreds of Irish missionaries were involved in supporting civilians during the Biafran war, which saw the establishment of Ireland’s first NGO, Concern.
The founding of other major Irish NGOs, Trócaire and GOAL, followed in the years thereafter. Ireland’s membership of the EEC led to the introduction of the country’s first official aid programme in 1974. By the end of that decade, Ireland had created four bilateral aid agreements, with Lesotho, Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia. In this time there were few households in Ireland that did not have a relative who worked in a low-income country, either as a priest, nun or international development worker. Charities and religious organisations contributed significantly to the creation of ‘international development education’ material, which continues to be integrated in the teaching in almost every primary school in Ireland.
Continued solid commitment to international development
In 2023 Ireland achieved its highest level of aid provided as percentage of gross national income (GNI) at 0.67% and aiming to reach its policy goal of 0.7% of GNI by 2030. This longwinded history of Ireland overseas development aid programme goes some way to explain why Ireland’s commitment to international development appears to be solid, at a time when, in many other EU countries, foreign aid has been one of the first budget lines to become a politized item that few parties are willing to support, and some are even planning to scrap.
Ireland’s politics has, from its independence until 2020, been dominated by two political parties; Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Both are centre right parties and since the 1930s, either party has led the Irish parliament. Since the mid-nineties, the Irish Aid budget has grown gradually but steadily under the leadership of either party, who draw their support from a moderate and until recent decades, predominantly Catholic electorate. The aid budget enjoys significant public support from the electorate. This sentiment is reflected in the behaviour of Irish people: a report in 2020 found that “62% of Irish people had helped a stranger in the past month, 69% had donated money to charity and 38% had volunteered their time”, while Ireland was the 5th most generously giving country, per capita.
Since the 2020 elections, however, the Ireland’s political landscape has changed: Sinn Fein became Ireland’s largest party. The republican party was previously primarily associated with the Irish Republican Army (IRA), but decades of peace and Sinn Fein’s constructive engagement in politics in Northern Ireland has changed many people’s perception. The party had been growing in popular support, especially among young voters, who have become disillusioned with the status quo after decades of Fina Fáil and Fine Gael dominance. The two parties are held responsible for Ireland’s economic crash and its slow recovery in terms of public service investment, leading to a significant housing crisis and a health service that struggles to cope with demand.
While a Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Green Party coalition has kept Sinn Fein out of Irish government after the 2020 election, the party is now taken seriously and expected to do well in the next elections, due before mid-2025. Extreme right, anti-immigrant politicians are also a feature of Irish politics in the past two-three years, but so far these sentiments seem to be driven by individuals, no party formation around right wing candidates.
The elections for the EU parliament in June 2024 provided an interesting stock take for all parties: Fine Gael and Fianna Fail received 20.79 and 20.44% of the votes respectively, followed by a disparate series of independent candidates, including some on the far right and far left, who obtained 13.97; Sinn Fein took 11.14% of the vote.
A bit more uncertainty ahead?
This leads us to conclude that Irish politics may continue the same steady course for another five years, which will be good for the aid budget. However, the electorate could decide to embrace the ‘change’ message from Sinn Fein, which would provide greater uncertainty for the aid budget, as the party’s focus is more inward looking and prioritises housing and health. In Sinn Fein’s 2023 shadow cabinet budget for 2024, the party did allocate a significant additional amount to the aid budget, not as much as the coalition parties spent, but it was far from a significant divergence.
However, in the near future, Ireland cannot ignore the right-wing elements in politics and society, which are promoting an anti-immigrant agenda, and gaining some traction among many Irish residents who struggle to find housing and complain of long waiting lists for medical procedures and public hospital A&E services. In this, Ireland is no different from many of its neighbours. Housing crises seem a bone of contention in ever more countries which struggle to fuel their economies and deliver public services, for which they needs workers, who, in turn need housing. This causes a situation whereby a trade-off between the economy, services or housing provides an impossible choice.
The Irish public continues to support the country’s foreign aid agenda that keeps being framed as being focused “on poverty reduction and delivering for the poorest and most vulnerable”, which, Irish Aid points out in its policy statement, is “Ireland’s vision of a more equal, peaceful and sustainable world. It charts a clear way forward to achieve this vision, shaping and protecting our stability, our prosperity, our shared interests and our common future”. It is no longer just about empathy and solidarity, but this spirit does remain central in Ireland’s approach to international development.
Pieternella Pieterse is Chair of Development Studies Association Ireland and a health systems researcher who focuses on human resources for health and the political economy of public healthcare provision in Low-Income Countries in Africa. Pieternella worked as a photojournalist and freelance researcher for NGOs and UN agencies before becoming an academic and was based in Ethiopia and Tanzania for 15+ years. Much of her recent research has focused on Sierra Leone. She has worked at Dublin City University since 2019 and is about to take up a new role at the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of the EADI Debating Development Blog or the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes.
Image: Ana Rey under a creative commons licence on Wikimedia