Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, is leading on this for us. We have asked all of our ambassadors in the areas where we have development programmes to come back to us with their own analysis of the impact of the USAID cuts on their programmes. The direct answer to the question is that it is an additional workload that our teams on the ground have to undertake. They would rather be undertaking how to best support these organisations than having to go back and examine the fiscal impact. I said in my opening statement, and I mean it, as does the Department, that we will want to be flexible and helpful to the agencies we are funding because we recognise the difficulties they are going through also.