Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)

The White Paper on Irish Aid included a commitment to establish a new interdepartmental committee on development to strengthen coherence in the Government's approach to development and to make best use of the expertise and skills available across the public service. I am pleased to say that, in line with that commitment, an interdepartmental committee on development has been established. It has met three times under my chairmanship. The next meeting will take place at the end of February.

The committee aims to strengthen coherence on development policy across Government. Development co-operation does not take place in isolation from other Government policies and the need for greater coherence in policies across sectors that affect developing countries is recognised. Examples of issues that are vital to the developing countries include trade, climate change and debt relief. Government Departments are represented on the interdepartmental committee by senior level officials who are actively engaging in the work. Two subgroups of the committee have been established, one to look at developing a more coherent policy in our relationships with multilateral organisations and the second focusing on making best use of the expertise and skills available across the public service in our development aid programme. The committee will report annually to the Minister for Foreign Affairs outlining its activities and making recommendations as appropriate.

The advisory board for Irish Aid was established in 2002 to provide oversight and advice to the Minister for Foreign Affairs on the strategic direction of the Government's programme of assistance to developing countries. The board's membership is drawn from a broad range of backgrounds, including the non-governmental organisations, community, public service, social partners and the business sector. The board's mission is to oversee the expanding programme, advise on strategic direction and work closely with Irish Aid to maximise quality, effectiveness and accountability. The current board's term of office will end later this year.

A major review of the management of the Irish Aid programme is currently under way. The aim of the review is to ensure the systems, structures, procedures and staffing of Irish Aid can deliver a high quality aid programme as funding expands towards reaching the target of 0.7% of GNP target by 2012, as committed to by the Taoiseach. It is hoped the review will be completed this spring.

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