Gerard Craughwell (Independent)
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I thank the Chair. The work the witnesses do is fantastic. The delivery of aid to the right place at the right time is something we should all be concerned about, particularly when the abuse of women and children is talked about. I got a text last night that took high street fashion and showed where it had been made.

It asked whether I was aware that a child cut this dress or was involved in this, that and the other. However, I am looking at the expenditure of €2.137 billion over ten years in overseas development aid and at its distribution. I want to outline some of that distribution and then ask the witnesses a question on it.

Looking at Ethiopia, where over ten years we have donated more than €552 million and the same country has a defence budget of $1.58 billion, we are paying roughly a third of that. Mozambique has received €299 million and therefore we are actually covering the cost of their defence, which is $0.28 billion. Tanzania received €252 million while Uganda received €242 million. I look at the military spending in each of these countries and I ask myself what is going on here. To give an analogy, were I to agree to fund your children's education and health, you could go off and buy a big car and drive around town looking rather flash, while I paid the cost of it. What sort of oversight is in place in respect of the money that was allocated to overseas development aid? Is it time we stepped back, reviewed what countries we are providing aid to and maybe switch the aid to countries that are far more in need than these countries, which can splash out a billion euro on their defence? I look at them and they have hundreds of soldiers, naval ships and air forces with modern jets. We do not have that. We cannot afford that in this country, where we have one ship and no aircraft that is a jet, yet I look at these countries and they have fighter jets.

I am trying to figure out whether we are allowing these countries to siphon off money from here for education, development and health while at the same time spending the money they should be spending on those things somewhere else? I know it is a touchy area but it needs to be addressed. I get emails all day, every day from people telling me that we are wasting money in overseas development aid. If our witnesses could address that for me I would appreciate it.