Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

One of the recommendations of the audit report of the Committee of Public Accounts was that NGOs and missionaries needed to be given a formal role in the deployment of aid. That would be a very good development. Will the Minister of State say whether there have been proposals to do that? Also, will he look at the concept of setting up an umbrella group whereby there may be some mechanism or filter body for streamlining small projects, say, where individuals are running modest projects on their own — where someone can make a small application for funding without thousands of people arriving at the Minister of State's door? How are such projects being dealt with at present?

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