Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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133. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the way in which the €110 million increase in overseas development assistance will be spent; the programmes that will receive part of the €45 million increase in Irish Aid; and the type of spending that makes up the rest of the €65 million increase in ODA spend. [42345/18]

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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For 2019, the Government has allocated almost €817 million for official development assistance, ODA. This level of allocation represents an increase of approximately €110 million – or 16% on the revised 2018 budget allocation.

Of this, €544.9 million will be managed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, whose Vote 27 – International Co-operation – is known publicly as Irish Aid. The allocation to Vote 27 has been increased by €44 million, or almost 9% on last year’s allocation. This will be taken into account in the detailed programme budget planning cycle for Irish Aid in 2019 that will take place before year end. Part of this allocation will be used to meet recent commitments made at the UN General Assembly including increased allocations to education in development, to humanitarian assistance and to peace building.

A further estimated €272 million will be managed through other Government Departments and Ireland’s share of the EU Development Co-operation Budget. This represents an increase of €65 million on 2018.

By far the largest component of this element of ODA is our share of the EU development cooperation budget which has grown significantly over the past few years and will continue to do so in 2019. In addition the Department of Finance will oversee Ireland joining the African Development Bank in 2019.

There are also increased allocations to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine who manage Ireland’s partnerships with the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation. Other programmes receiving increases are managed by the Department of Communications, Climate Action and the Environment, and the Revenue Commissioners.