The Church of Ireland Bishop of Limerick, the Rt Revd Michael Mayes, today suggested that the Irish government had nothing to be proud about following its decision to abandon its pledge to devote 0.7% of GNP by 2007 to help the poor.

Bishop Mayes, who is chairman of the Church of Ireland World Development Bishops' Appeal Advisory Committee, said: "I have just returned from Cambodia where I visited a number of aid projects supported by Bishops' Appeal, Christian Aid and other aid agencies. Some are supported by donations from the Irish government itself.

"As well as seeing something of the poverty, squalor, corruption and disease that are the lot of many thousands of people, one learned about such things as the buying and selling of children on the cheap labour market, and even worse, the child sex tourist industry in which Phnom Penh is allegedly a world leader. This is not a reflection on moral bankruptcy so much as the desperate measures to which so many are reduced simply in order to survive. Similar stories can be repeated all over the world.

"It is against that kind of background that the government's abandonment of its pledge to devote 0.7% of GNP to aid by 2007 is to be judged, and the outburst of self-congratulation on being 'well ahead of the EU average of 0.35%' can be seen for what it is. It is also a profound discouragement to the many individuals and voluntary organisations in this country whose personal and corporate giving is already far above even the pledged target that the government has repeatedly set itself.

"The collective memory of widespread disease and famine is still fresh in the Irish mind, which puts us in a unique position to feel for those who are in similar circumstances today. It would be a travesty if today's unprecedented prosperity should erase that memory, thereby preventing us from doing so much less than we have promised."