Ireland should meet UN commitments on overseas aid - Social Justice Ireland
There are calls for the next Government to agree to UN commitments on overseas aid.
Countries are expected to contribute almost a percent of net profits to help the developing world - however Ireland has been well below that mark.
Eamon Murphy, head of policy with Social Justice Ireland, says the country has come close to the target in the past.
"A firm commitment made to increasing the budget to 0.7% of national income as was agreed almost two decades ago," said Mr Murphy.
"Ireland has come very close in the past to reaching that target. The peak was in 2008.
"Then over the course of the financial crisis, unsurprisingly, we fell back quite a bit.
"There has been some recovery in the last few years but we're still well off that target at about 0.4%."
Mr Murphy said that Ireland's economic recovery should be seen as a reason for increasing overseas aid.
"We should remember that even though Ireland is facing a number of crises at the moment, other countries and other people in other parts of the world face much greater challenges than we do.
"Particularly in relation to the developing of the sustainable development goals and in relation to our climate change obligations, we have a moral obligation to make sure that these countries can develop in the same way that we did."
