Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 19 October 2011
27 Deputy Anthony Lawlor asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if he will provide specific details as to the frequency with which the evaluation and audit unit of his Department evaluates and audits recipients of funding through Irish Aid; if all non-government organisations are subjected to the same audit process to ensure consistency; if not, the reason for same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30281/11]
View answerThe Evaluation and Audit Unit of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade carries out an annual programme of strategic evaluations such as the evaluation of our Country Programmes, thematic evaluations such as our support to combating HIV and AIDS, and evaluations of major NGOs. In addition, all of Irish Aid's major partners, including UN agencies and Global Funds, have well established evaluation functions and they make available to Irish Aid their evaluation reports, thus complementing the evaluation work of Irish Aid itself.
In keeping with our evaluation policy, all evaluations undertaken by the Evaluation and Audit Unit, such as our soon to be published evaluation of funding to four major Irish NGOs, are posted on the Irish Aid website. The Evaluation and Audit Unit's approach to audit takes account of the different types of partners in receipt of funding and the nature and frequency of audits is determined accordingly. The audit approach to Irish Aid funding combines audit work carried out directly by the Evaluation and Audit Unit, audits commissioned by Irish Aid, and reliance on external audit reports received from partner organisations.
Funds are provided to a range of NGOs from large scale NGOs in receipt of very significant funding to more modest funding provided to smaller NGOs for individual projects. Funding provided to NGOs is audited in various ways and depends on a number of factors, including the size of the grant and the nature of the programme involved.
For smaller grants, there is a contractual requirement that audited accounts are provided. For larger grants, in addition to an annual audit of accounts, it is routine that we undertake specialised audits. For example in relation to the Multi-Annual Programme Scheme, which is the most significant funding scheme in terms of the volume of funding available to Irish NGOs, it is our audit practice to subject each NGO partner to an in-depth audit at least once in the 5 year programming period.
