Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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346. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if he will provide a schedule of NGOs that he and bodies under the aegis of his Department suspended funding and-or grant aid to due to their failure to file accounts and-or concerns that arose in respect of their governance in the years 2019 to 2022 and to date in 2023; and the amount of funding per NGO that was suspended. [8656/23]

Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The Department of Foreign Affairs provides significant grant funding to a diverse range of groups and organisations. These include large multilateral organisations addressing global challenges, Non-Governmental Organisations delivering critical development programmes and humanitarian assistance, research institutions generating evidence-based research to inform policy, and community-based organisations supporting peace and reconciliation on the island of Ireland and delivering services to vulnerable groups and the diaspora.

Many of the Non-Governmental Organisations in receipt of such funding are Irish, and are registered with the Charities Regulatory Authority. The Department has a Memorandum of Understanding with the Regulator to provide a framework for the sharing of relevant information.

The Department expects the highest standards of governance and accountability from organisations in receipt of grants, in line with the Department of Public Expenditure requirements for organisations in receipt of Exchequer funding. It reserves the right to reduce grants, stop transfers prematurely or withhold future payments if contractual obligations are not met, if it emerges that the funds are not being used or have not been used for the purposes for which they have been made available or where instances of fraud or corrupt practices are suspected or have been found to have occurred.

In the period between January 2019 and February 2023, the Department suspended funding to two organisations due to concerns over their governance. The details of one of these cases are set out in the table below. I am not in a position to provide information on the other case at this time as the organisation in question is currently the subject of a Garda investigation.