Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We have engaged in significant scrutiny during a useful series of recent meetings, but, ultimately, it stemmed from a Government target to achieve savings of €75 million in allowances. The taxpayer is providing approximately €636 million in overseas development aid each year, much of which is well spent, but in the past few days it has emerged that €4 million intended to assist people in Uganda ended up in a government account there, which raises significant questions. We should reopen discussion on Vote 29 on international co-operation and ask the chief executive officer of Irish Aid and the Secretary General of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to come before the committee for a special meeting to scrutinise how the moneys in the Vote are spent and check what safeguards are in place. A number of questions, some of which were raised in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report, are more relevant and topical now than when the committee examined the Vote. There are also new questions about aid provided by the Government through NGOs versus bilateral aid, the checks and balances in place and learning from international best practice. If the taxpayer is to be asked to continue to allocate such a large sum abroad - we have always been a generous nation - we need to know the money is going to the places the taxpayer intends it to go.