Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister for his response and wish to take him up on one issue - namely, the advertisements from different agencies seeking money for Haiti. Aid agencies might dispute this as a simplistic approach, but would the Minister agree that there may be merit in aid agencies' concentrating on individual geographical areas rather than different subjects or concepts? If we had one aid agency dealing with each country, it would be so much easier to manage. Perhaps that is impossible to achieve. Even here we have a plethora of organisations, including three of four farming organisations. However, such a system would be easier to administer and allow for the development of greater expertise and for economies of scale. Whenever something happens there are seven or eight different aid agencies trying to help. Perhaps this is a utopian ideal that is not possible to achieve, but I would like to hear the Minister's view on whether we should aspire to a situation in which aid agencies concentrate on certain programme countries rather than having smaller operations in many different countries.

See this speech in context