Mary Ann O'Brien (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to restate a call I made before the Christmas recess for a debate on Ireland's foreign aid budget. On that occasion, many Senators expressed difficulty with my stance on the issue but welcomed the idea of a mature and responsible debate on the topic. Ireland spent ¤639 million in 2012 with a further ¤623 million due to be spent this year. More than 80% of this money will go to Africa, where we have witnessed examples of corruption and waste in recent months. "Wasteful" and "riddled with corruption" are two statements that come to mind when I think, for example, of Uganda. Ireland's 0.53% of GDP aid allocation is among the top nine donors in the world in per capita terms. On the same scale, the US is 19th in development assistance, although this statistic does not reflect what the US spends on emergency aid. We must debate the reform of our auditing procedures to ensure every euro spent by taxpayers overseas creates economic growth not only for the recipient countries, but also for us in our dealings with them. We must also debate our strategy on how foreign aid is spent to ensure we embrace change. It was reported earlier that a report on the Garda has not been done for almost half a century. I wonder when a policy document was last created on foreign aid and how we spend it.