Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We deal with the situation as we see it on the ground. Under the OECD guidelines, the most desirable way to ensure partnership engagement between the donor country and the partner country is for the governments to engage. Where the partner government has a budget to deal with health, education and so on, that becomes part and parcel of the prioritisation donor countries engage in to ensure the optimum outcome from the funding that is made available. Where there is a suspicion of fraud or corruption, that is bypassed. That is done on a country by country basis and Uganda is one example of that.

The issue of human rights and LGBTI comes up and we have a strong position on those matters. As well as ensuring we would not engage directly with the government in Uganda as a result of the fraud, the fact that it introduced repressive legislation confirmed our position. At the same time, we got a clear message from civil society and the NGO community that we should not refrain from providing aid to the poorest people there because the government might not be trustworthy. Nevertheless, the people do not deserve to be penalised because of the faults of the government. We have continued to ensure aid goes directly to the people who are most in need.

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