Development budget cuts forced by the economic crunch in recent years helped keep Ireland’s aid programs afloat, Irish Minister of State for Overseas Development Peter Power said while on a visit in South Africa this week.
The Irish Times reports that Peter Power defended the recent 22 percent slash in Ireland’s aid budget saying existing aid programs would have been in peril if the government did not implement budget cuts as a means to protect and sustain the country’s economy amid the global financial crisis.
“If we had not made those difficult decisions [to cut the overseas development budget], it is very possible the existing programmes we support could have been put in real jeopardy… We practise sustainable development in all the countries we support, so it behooves us to sustain our own economy so we can continue to support these programmes,” Power said, as quoted by the Irish Times.
