John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)

This is an issue that arises again and again. It arose again today when Concern attended the sub-committee on overseas development. With regard to Accra, today's discussion was concerned with the harmonisation of donor activity and cutting down the duplication of bureaucracy. Concern used the examples of Vietnam and Tanzania, where, for example, officials in the health care system spend more time on administration and dealing with donors than on the health care system. The GNP of development countries is being reduced, just as ours is. Therefore, we must have far more efficiency within the Irish aid budget as well as in budgets generally throughout the world. What ongoing efforts does Irish Aid make to ensure there is more efficiency and no unnecessary duplication within our aid budget?

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