Peter Power (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

Ireland's aid programme, administered by the Department of Foreign Affairs through Irish Aid, has an international reputation for its quality and its effectiveness. As recently as the beginning of this month it has had that reputation validated once again by the OECD development assistance committee, which has commended the programme as "cutting edge" and indicated that "Ireland is a champion in making aid more effective".

Our aid programme has an overarching objective, which is the reduction of poverty in some of the poorest countries in the world. The programme concentrates on nine programme countries - seven in Africa and two in Asia. This focus on nine countries facilitates a balanced approach in terms of the requirement to reach a large number of poor people, the need to mitigate risk across a number of countries and the importance of bringing our influence to bear on the policies of a number of governments, thus maximising the effectiveness on the ground of our development co-operation programme.

Our approach also fosters local ownership of development co-operation and seeks to make governments more accountable to their people. Working on two continents and in a number of countries also facilitates lesson learning across our programmes. This balanced, cautious, sustainable and poverty-focused approach works well and has earned us our enviable reputation.

Most large agencies, NGOs and missionary groups work in a greater number of countries than Irish Aid. We respect this more diverse approach and Irish Aid is one of the largest donors in the world to NGOs and missionaries. We will continue to support their programmes and projects across the world and, in this difficult economic climate, work even harder with them to ensure that all our shared efforts are carried out and judged through the lens of a result-focused approach.

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