Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 20 December 2012

Public Accounts Committee

2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 19 - Official Development Assistance
Vote 28 - Foreign Affairs and Trade
Vote 29 - International Co-operation

10:30 am

Mr. David Cooney:

I have with me my file of responses from the missions and I must say, by and large, having read it myself I am satisfied. Where questions have arisen in my mind I have asked the evaluation and audit unit to take a thorough look before I meet the ambassadors so it is satisfied it has all of the answers. I have already held an inquiry on the situation in Ethiopia and we have tracked it back. Based on what I have received I am now satisfied this is the case. This should not have happened and I find it surprising that it did so. I do not want to see it happening again. This has been a wake-up call. If there is one thing worse than experiencing fraud, it is not dealing properly with that fraud and I am determined we will deal with this properly and ensure, as far as possible, it will never happen again. We did not expect this to happen so I cannot say nothing unexpected will happen in the future but the Deputy is absolutely correct and I cannot disagree with him.

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