Peter Power (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)
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Assistance to development organisations operating in Nepal has totalled €3,686,140 since 2004, as follows:

2004: €448,468

2005: €596,620

2006: €671,940

2007: €1,250,058

2008: €719,054.

The funding has been provided under a number of different schemes, including funding for missionary organisations, volunteer programmes, and funding for long term development under the Civil Society Fund in the areas of human rights, health, education and livelihood support. Funds were also allocated for emergency assistance dealing with flooding. In 2005, €200,000 was made available as a contribution to the establishment of a field office of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North, Fine Gael)
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Question 118: To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he will increase the budget allocated to the Defence Forces for humanitarian aid in respect of future missions abroad; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20220/08]

Peter Power (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)
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From time to time, Irish Aid has provided the Defence Forces with small but effective amounts of funding to assist with small scale development activities, while on peacekeeping missions. For example, funding totalling €242,000 was provided for micro-projects carried out by Irish troops serving with United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) between November 2003 and May 2007. This funding was used, inter alia, to assist the Sisters of Charity in renovating a hospice in Monrovia. One of my predecessors, Minister of State, Deputy Conor Lenihan, visited this worthwhile project in March 2006. Similar funding has also been provided to the Irish Defence Forces during other peacekeeping missions, such as their current mission in Kosovo.

Irish Aid is also collaborating extensively with the Department of Defence and the Defence Forces in relation to the development of the Rapid Response Initiative. We are, for example, working closely with the Defence Forces UN Training School in the development and delivery of part of the pre-departure training course for the Rapid Response Corps. This training course focuses on personal security issues and aims to prepare members of the Corps for deployments to difficult and challenging environments.

There is also a small number of serving Defence Forces members who are members of the Rapid Response Corps, while several Corps members are also former Defence Forces members. The Department of Defence has also made available a Defence Forces officer to participate as one of Ireland's members of the UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) process. That officer, together with an Irish Aid staff member, was deployed in February 2008 on his first UNDAC mission to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Department of Defence and the Defence Forces have also made warehouse space available in the Curragh Camp, Co. Kildare for the purposes of our pre-positioned humanitarian supplies. As recently as last week, a large shipment of supplies from this store was, with the assistance of the Defence Forces, airlifted to Burma/Myanmar, where they were to be distributed by Concern to those most affected by the recent cyclone.

As the Defence Forces are not primarily a humanitarian or development organisation, they do not attract a specific humanitarian budget allocation. However, Irish Aid will continue to appraise any proposals submitted by the Defence Forces and will allocate funding according to the accepted criteria of need.