The Taoiseach has marked World AIDS Day by pledging to spend at least €30 million a year on combating the disease in the developing world.
Mr Ahern told a commemorative ceremony in Dublin yesterday he planned to replenish on an annual basis the special HIV/AIDs fund established last year. This would allow the Government to "step-change" its commitment to the fight against the disease.
Already, increased funding was beginning to roll into AIDS programmes at national, regional and local level, to great effect, he said.
Mr Ahern said that part of the tragedy of AIDS was that it was preventable and treatable. Why then, he asked, was it wiping out entire generations in the poorest countries in the world?
"The answer is that AIDS is both a symptom and a cause of world poverty, and reflects an increasingly divided world."
He recalled the "grim statistics" of the disease:
some 42 million people are living with HIV/AIDS;
three million people have died in the past year;
two million of these victims are in Africa;
the leading United Nations AIDS expert says the disease is "only in its infancy".
Mr Ahern said: "Some people see figures like that and feel nothing can be done. I look at them and feel that something has to be done.
"World AIDS Day is an occasion to say that it is wrong, in this day and age, that HIV/AIDS remains an automatic death sentence for the poor in the Third World, while it can be treated in the First."
While not restating his Government's commitment to reach UN targets on aid spending, he did point out that Ireland was the world's sixth-largest donor in relative terms.
He emphasised the need for aid spending to be accountable and to give value-for-money if it was to secure lasting public support.
Meanwhile, the AIDS charity Cáirde has called for greater investment in research on microbicides - creams or similar substances that can be applied internally in the body to retard the sexual transmission of HIV/AIDS.
It says microbicides offer a "revolutionary development" for women who are not in a position to demand condom use because of gender inequalities.
Goal called on governments to pledge free drugs and treatment to those affected by the disease.
"No-one should be denied life-saving or life-prolonging drugs because they cannot afford them. The world must wake up to this unfolding nightmare before it's too late," said the charity's chief executive Mr John O'Shea.
