Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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185. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if his Department will assist a person (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [62971/25]

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I have asked officials in the Development Cooperation and Africa Division of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to engage directly with the Deputy in relation to this individual case.

Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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186. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the total amount allocated to Irish Aid in 2025; and the way in which this compares to the previous five years. [62973/25]

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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Ireland's international development programme focusses on providing support for countries and communities most seriously in need. For 2025, €810.3 million was allocated for the Irish Aid programme managed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This was the highest level to date in the history of the programme.

Budget 2026 has provided for a further increase of €30 million for next year, for a total allocation of €840.3 million.

Figures for the Budget for Vote 27 of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade over the preceding five years and the year-on-year increases in the allocations to 2025 are set out in tabular format below:

Detailed information on the distribution of Ireland's ODA is published every year in the Government's Official Development Assistance Annual Report, which is available online.

Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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187. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the proportion of Ireland’s GNI that is spent on ODA annually. [62974/25]

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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The Government remains committed to the target agreed at the UN to provide 0.7% of Gross National Income in Official Development Assistance (ODA). The commitment was reaffirmed in A Better World, Ireland's International Development Policy, and again in the Programme for Government.

Ireland’s total ODA for 2024 was €2.35 billion, representing 0.56% of Gross National Income (GNI). Excluding ODA-eligible support for Ukrainian refugees in their first year in Ireland, the figure was €1.72 billion, or 0.41% as a percentage of GNI. This was an increase from 0.38% in 2023.

Annual figures from 2020 to 2024 are set out below in tabular format.

Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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188. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade to provide a list of current Irish funded development projects in Africa, including funding amounts and objectives. [62975/25]

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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Ireland's international development programme provides support for countries and communities most acutely in need, with a particular focus on sub-Saharan Africa. The Government's policy for international development, A Better World, provides the framework, with the objective of reaching the furthest behind first and addressing the needs of those living in some of the world’s poorest or most climate-exposed countries, as well as those living in areas affected by conflict.

In 2024, Ireland's Official Development Assistance (ODA) totalled €2.35 billion, of which €771.3 million was managed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. A total of €187.5 million of bilateral ODA was channelled to our main priority countreis in Africa: Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Malawi, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Kenya, Liberia and Senegal. The funding supported development programmes focused on education, health, climate resilient livelihoods, gender equality and governance. This support is channelled through programmes managed by our Embassies in these countries, and through through civil society and humanitarian organisations, and multilateral organisations, including the United Nations and the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

In addition, very significant humanitarian assistance was provided to countries in Africa facing unprecedented levels of crisis, because of conflict, climate change, inequalities and natural disasters. In 2024, a total of €69. 8 million in ODA was provided in humanitarian assistance in South Sudan, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger, Central African Republic and Chad. The objective of the funding was to address the needs of some of the world’s poorest, prioritising life-saving assistance.

The Government's Official Development Assistance Annual Report details our activities in partner countries and highlights the impact of the international development programme, Irish Aid. The Annual Report 2024 is available online. It contains a number of statistical annexes which provide details on the funding to countries receiving bilateral ODA, to multilateral organisations and to civil society organisations.

For this year, the Government has provided €810.3 million for the Irish Aid programme managed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. As announced in Budget 2026, this will be increased to €840.3 million for next year, the highest ever level of funding for the Irish Aid programme.

Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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189. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the way in which Irish Aid monitors and evaluates the effectiveness of its funded projects. [62976/25]

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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The Government delivers our international development programme through several channels: our Embassies in developing countries, civil society and humanitarian organisations, and multilateral organisations, including the United Nations and its agencies. The key criterion to determine which channel to use is the ability of the partner to reach those in need in the most effective way possible. High standards of accountability ensure that the aid provided reaches its intended beneficiaries, making a real difference in the lives of those furthest behind.

Robust systems are in place on the traceability of Ireland’s funding to multilateral agencies. We rely on strong internal and external oversight functions, which we and other international donors have insisted on for multilateral agencies. Detailed reports and recommendations on the use of funding are presented to us at Executive Board level and committees in the EU context. Ireland also engages actively on the Executive Boards of UN agencies.

Ireland’s involvement in and support of the Multilateral Organisation Performance Assessment Network (MOPAN) ensures additional oversight and independent assessments of multilateral organisations. We encourage multilateral agencies to utilise the findings of MOPAN assessments as a means for improvement, with a view to increasing effectiveness.

We also implement detailed accountability mechanisms to monitor funding to international development NGOs to implement programmes and projects in countries which are eligible for Official Development Assistance (ODA). The OECD has commended Ireland for the quality of our partnerships with international development NGOs.

Within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the independent Evaluation and Audit Unit supports, protects, and enhances the delivery of the Department’s overall mission by providing objective assessment, assurance, advice, and insight regarding corporate performance, governance, risk management, and internal control, including through evaluation.

Evaluations in the Department are undertaken in three ways: centralised evaluations undertaken or commissioned directly by the Evaluation and Audit Unit; spending reviews, in line with the Public Spending Code; and decentralised evaluations commissioned and managed by Business Units and Missions.

In addition to the Department's Evaluation Policy (2022), the Evaluation and Audit Unit’s Evaluation and Audit Strategy 2024–2027 guides the work of the Evaluation and Audit Unit.

Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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190. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the support Irish Aid provides to women’s empowerment programmes in developing countries. [62977/25]

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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Gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls is a key priority for Ireland’s foreign policy. A Better World, Ireland’s policy for international development, commits to the provision of direct funding to gender equality programmes as well as to ensuring the integration of the needs and interests of women and girls across all of our work.

Ireland has consistently been ranked among the OECD member countries with the highest share of Official Development Assistance with gender equality objectives. In addition, we fund interventions directly dedicated to supporting women’s political and economic empowerment; prioritising girls’ access to quality education; addressing gender based violence; and improving women and girls’ access to sexual and reproductive health.

In our work on women’s economic empowerment, we champion a particular focus on women’s empowerment in agriculture and food systems, recognising that although women produce up to 80% of food in developing countries, significant gender inequalities undermine their earning potential by limiting their access to land, credit, inputs and services.

Through our partnerships with organisations including the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the International Land Coalition, we work to strengthen women’s rights to inherit and own land and improve women smallholders’ access to finance through the gender-inclusive reform of financial institutions, including credit unions. Since 2024, Ireland has also partnered with the UN Joint Programme on Rural Women’s Economic Empowerment, which works to support women’s livelihoods and leadership in food systems in nine developing countries.

In addition, in 2024, we committed support to the Commit to Grow Equality Initiative established by the FAO ahead of the International Year of the Woman Farmer in 2026. The initiative works to monitor, coordinate and enhance countries’ and international organisations’ efforts to achieve gender equality in agri-food systems.

More broadly, there has been a significant increase in Ireland’s ODA designated towards women's rights organisations over the last five years. This is in line with Ireland’s commitments at the Generation Equality Forum in 2021. In 2024 we launched two new partnerships to resource women-led organisations’ engagement on climate justice and to provide rapid response grants to women human rights defenders in crisis contexts.

Ireland will continue to be to the fore in international efforts to drive gender equality and champion the rights of women and girls, in our statements and through increased investments in the implementation of our international development policy.