Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Today's meeting has been called regarding the misappropriation of Irish Aid funds in Uganda. We will discuss the matter with Mr. Brendan Rogers, director general of Irish Aid, and his officials. I welcome them. Mr. Rogers is accompanied by Mr. Michael Gaffey, deputy director general, Mr. Liam Mac Gabhann, director of programme countries, and Dr. Vincent O'Neill, director of policy, planning and effectiveness. I thank the director general for keeping me informed in recent weeks of the situation in Uganda. He made personal calls to keep me updated.

Members of the committee and the Irish people, who are the most important element, were disturbed to hear that €4 million in Irish Aid development funds had been misappropriated by the Office of the Prime Minister of Uganda, that country's highest office. As the committee is aware, Irish Aid has a proud history of providing development assistance to the world's poorest people and our international reputation for the quality of our aid programme is second to none. Many members have witnessed this during their visits to a number of programme countries, particularly our recent visit to Sierra Leone. That we are able to continue to fund the delivery of high-quality aid programmes in the midst of the most difficult economic crisis ever experienced by Ireland is a testament to the Irish Aid success story. Most Irish people appreciate the significant work being done by Irish Aid and the non-governmental organisations, NGOs.

However, it has always been of the utmost importance that money provided by the Irish taxpayer for development assistance reaches the people for whom it is intended. Taxpayers need to be confident that, notwithstanding the difficult environment in which aid is delivered, money is being well spent.

The committee's job today is to explore with the officials in charge of Irish Aid what went wrong and how the Irish people can be sufficiently reassured so that we can continue to be confident about the way Irish Aid's budget is being spent. It is key that we reassure people that this is a one-off.

The Government and Irish Aid made a good start. The Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs moved immediately to suspend all Irish assistance channelled through the government of Uganda. A team of officials, from the Department's evaluation and audit unit, immediately travelled to Uganda to investigate the matters, as did the director general of Irish Aid and his officials. The Government of Uganda has already confirmed that all of the misappropriated money will be reimbursed. It is also worth recalling that it was Uganda's auditor general that discovered the misappropriation.

The Office of the Auditor General in Uganda has had significant support from Irish Aid to supply skills and capacity building. The independence and strength displayed by the office in this investigation is encouraging and demonstrates the value of the support and connection. That said, it is not the Ugandan auditor who is accountable to the Oireachtas for the way in which Irish Aid funds are managed, that is the job Irish officials and officeholders. Since the misappropriation was uncovered it was important that officials travelled to Uganda to report their preliminary findings as quickly as possible. Mr. Rogers and his team have come here at their earliest opportunity and are anxious to share with us their findings and to tell us what happened.

I wish to advise the witnesses that they are protected by absolute privilege in respect of utterances at this committee. However, if they are directed by the committee to cease making remarks on a particular matter and they continue to do so, they are entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of their remarks. They are directed that only comments and evidence relating to the subject matter of this meeting are to be given, and they are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against a Member of either House of the Oireachtas, a person outside the Houses or an official by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I invite Mr. Rogers to make his presentation and afterwards the delegation will answer questions from Members.