Vol. 310 No. 7
I move:
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £10 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 1978, for contributions to International Organisations and for Official Development Assistance, including certain grants-in-aid.
In the Main Estimate for the Department of Foreign Affairs a sum of £1,595,000 was provided by way of benefit for the development of developing countries arising from our membership of the EEC but it appears from this Supplementary Estimate that £878,000 of that money has not been spent. Therefore, I should like to know what happened to that money which was voted by the House for this very worthy purpose. Can the Minister state whether other member countries who made similar commitments in their budgets for this year have failed to honour their commitments to the extent that apparently we have failed to honour ours by virtue of this very large saving of almost £1 million on subhead F in relation to payments to developing countries. Additional money has been provided in this Supplementary Estimate for bilateral aid and for disaster relief, but this money is being provided only because apparently we have not spent the money that we intended to spend for aid under the aegis of our membership of the EEC. So we are simply taking from one heading of aid to developing countries and giving it under another, and the total amount extra being provided for international co-operation under the Supplementary Estimate now before the House is £10. A very substantial saving has been made under one important heading of aid under our membership of the EEC and that has enabled the other improvements to be made.
It is a matter of concern to me and to this House. If we are saving under aid to developing countries which we should be giving as members of the EEC and if other countries are able to keep their aid under EEC aegis up to scratch and if, in order to meet other emergencies, we have to cut back on what we have already committed ourselves to in the Estimate for EEC aid, that is not going to do our representation in the Community any good. I would like the Minister to explain how this saving arose.
This is a small Supplementary Estimate. I would like to follow the questions raised by Deputy Bruton. Am I right in assuming that the increase in the bilateral aid has taken the form of moneys made available to voluntary agencies? There was some reference to this by Euro representatives at the Coolock seminar. Certain increases were announced for the voluntary agencies at that seminar and while those increases were undoubtedly welcomed by the people involved, this raises the question of how unaffected, slow or bureaucratic the EDF is.
I am glad that the money is being spent and that it is not simply going back into the central coffers. First of all, is the way in which the money is being spent in the bilateral aid programme largely by grants to the voluntary agencies already in the field? Secondly, is the reason for the non-spending under the Lomé heading—and the assumption is that it is the EDF money that has not been taken up, so to speak—the bureuacratic delays within the administration of the EDF? If that is the case, has the Minister any proposal for streamlining the whole development co-operation programme run by the Community and will these proposals form part of the Minister's submission for the rehabilitation of Lomé?
Deputy Quinn was very much nearer the reality than was Deputy Bruton. If I can engage Deputy Bruton's attention for a moment I might be able to set his mind at ease. In the first instance, I assure Deputy Bruton that it is not in any sense a failure on our part to honour our commitments. It is very much the opposite. As Deputy Bruton has perhaps understood, our contribution to the European Development Fund for 1978 was assessed on the basis of requests made to us from the European Community at 1,668,000 European units of account. However, the Commission decided in the course of the year that only half of this amount would be required and this resulted in expenditure of £526,436. That left a probable unexpended balance of £878,563. First, I want to make it quite clear that this was not due to any failure on the part of this Government. Secondly, we had honoured our commitments in indicating to our Community partners that we were prepared to make these funds available but coming towards the end of the year when we saw that this money was not being called up—and I share Deputy Quinn's concern about this—I again this year took the step that I took last year which was the first year that this was ever done.
I got agreement from the Government and from the Minister for Finance to transfer the moneys which would otherwise have been lost to our development co-operation Vote, to our bilateral programme. To that extent then these moneys, which would otherwise have been saved, would not have been mentioned in this House. If one were to take note of Deputy Bruton's criticism, they would simply have gone back into the Exchequer, as happened in the years between 1973 and 1977.
The Minister should come back to the Appropriation Bill.
I have to say, in fairness to my predecessor, that he acknowledged publicly recently that I had been able to achieve last year what he had not been able to achieve, and I presume he will also support what we have been able to do this year. I do not want to make what we have been able to do a criticism of what was not done before, but it is only fair that before Deputy Bruton moves into battle talking in terms of our failure to honour our commitments, he might learn a little beforehand about the realities. I am not asking him to change his opinion of it but he might change his tone in view of the facts.
The bilateral programme that Deputy Quinn touched upon covers a whole range of areas. Among them is the assistance for voluntary agencies. I would envisage that, while it has not all been decided yet, I will be making further announcements very soon on the allocations of the moneys now saved through our bilateral programme. I assure Deputy Quinn and also those who are very much involved in this area, the voluntary organisations, the various non-governmental organisations and our own people in the field in the various countries where we are represented, that this will be used to support the programmes. I cannot give details yet, as I hope Deputy Quinn will understand, but I recognise the validity of what he suggests. The announcement already made, together with some further developments, will prove that we respect this contribution and see it as being very much an effective agency of our programme.
May I ask a question?
Yes.
Can I take it that the transfer of money is not going to the voluntary sections involved?
No, the £250,000 of what was saved can be transferred without a Vote to disaster relief because that is not a grant-in-aid, and that has been done. The balance is what concerns us now. Not all of it will be going to the voluntary sector; some of it will be applied directly to our bilateral aid projects in the various countries in which we operate. I need not go into details as to where they are. I have been very pleased with the support from my Government colleagues which enabled me to use this very considerable sum of money this year and last year.
I have to take Deputy Quinn's final very valid point. It arises because under the Lomé Convention and through the European Development Fund the Commission were not able to call on the money that was made available to them. They were not, in effect, able to develop the project for one reason or another.
Why?
This is a matter I mentioned in the course of a recent seminar and one that I am very concerned about and on which I have expressed concern to our partners. To get the projects under way involves, first of all, preparation of the projects in the countries that would benefit, and to that extent it is sometimes found that the administrative machinery is not sufficiently strong in the recipient country to take advantage at that time of the moneys being made available. The case was made to me very regularly during the course of my visit to Africa that what they see as being unduly restrictive bureaucratic procedures prevent them from meeting the deadlines and prevent the immediate application of aid. This is the case that I have brought back to Commissioner Cheysson and to my Community partners. It is vitally important because this has happened not only this year but also last year. It is a matter of great concern that where Community moneys are committed by other partners as for us—and our partners find themselves in exactly the same position as we do—the moneys have not been taken up, so we are not quite sure what each of them are doing consequent on that. This is a matter which the Community has to tackle. It is a central issue in the renegotiation of the Lomé Convention and I can assure the House that it is one that I certainly will be pressing very strongly because it is hardly short of a tragedy that moneys which are available for countries in such great need are not in fact being applied.
