Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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73. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade when the consultation process will commence on the planned White Paper on Irish overseas development assistance; the expected publication date for the White Paper; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18931/18]

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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The Government is strongly committed to Ireland’s overseas development cooperation programme and to its place at the heart of our foreign policy. My Department will produce a new White Paper on international development policy in 2018.

Our ambition in the White Paper will be to continue to lead and participate in collective global aspirations for a better world, as reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals.

Internal preparations and analysis are already underway. The consultation process is following Department of Public Expenditure and Reform guidelines. Consultation across Government is ongoing and a public consultation will be launched before the summer, involving both public meetings and online opportunities to input. The new policy will be launched shortly thereafter, taking on board the outputs from the public consultation phase.

The White Paper will also build on the independent work of the review of the Irish Aid programme recently undertaken by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade (JCFAT).