Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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135. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade when the review of the White Paper on Ireland's international development policy will be completed and published; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42542/18]

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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The Government has committed to publishing a new White Paper on Ireland’s international development policy. The intention is to publish the document before the end of the year.

The development of the new policy is being led by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in close consultation with other Departments. While the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade leads on Ireland’s bilateral development programme at least one third of Ireland’s ODA is provided by other Government Departments.

A comprehensive internal and external consultation process to help develop the new policy, in line with the public consultation guidelines published by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, has now concluded. This process included a preliminary consultation paper, following which submissions were received from across Government and the Embassy network. A series of workshops took place involving invited external experts and the support of consultants to facilitate detailed discussions.

Building on this input, a public consultation element was launched on 12 July. Over 185 substantive written submissions were received in response to a public consultation paper. Another 14,000 emails expressing support for the aid programme were received. "Townhall" meetings were held in Cork, Galway, Sligo and Limerick, with the public consultation phase ending on 2 October with the final public meeting in Dublin.

The various inputs received are now being synthesised and together with research, analysis and assessments of the wider global environment will be used to develop the new policy.