With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle I propose to take the Supplementary Estimates for Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation together.
The Supplementary Estimate for Foreign Affairs is required mainly because of deliberate under-estimation when the Estimate for the Vote was being prepared by the previous Government. Altogether, over £1.1 million was deducted, apparently arbitrarily, at a time when it was clear that ongoing commitments could not be met from the amount of money proposed. Excesses appear on five subheads of the Vote — salaries, travel and communications, office machinery, post office services and repatriation and maintenance of Irish citizens abroad. The total of the additional sums required is £1,700,000 but this is partly offset by savings elsewhere in the Vote amounting to £100,000 and by an additional anticipated increase of £300,000 in appropriations-in-aid. The net additional sum required is therefore £1,300,000.
The anticipated increase of £800,000 arises on the salaries subhead mainly because of a deduction of £477,000 at Estimates time. It was clear at the outset that the original provision would not be sufficient, and the inevitable shortfall was further compounded by the fact that serious fluctuations in some currencies, notably the US dollar and the British £, occurred during the year.
Similarly, an unrealistic deduction of £588,000 was made in the travel subhead. Currency devaluations also affected expenditure on this subhead. Despite the strictest economy in the use of the services that this subhead provides for, there are unavoidable commitments which have to be met. The additional sum of £555,000 now sought is the minimum required to enable these commitments to be adequately catered for in the current year.
Subhead B.2, which provides for office machinery and related supplies, is yet another example of deliberate under-provision. My Department have paid £40,000 for computer soft-ware which will be utilised by the civil service as a whole. When this is taken into account, ongoing departmental expenditure is actually less in this subhead than it was last year. Nevertheless, I am obliged to seek approval for an additional sum of £121,000 by way of Supplementary Estimate.
The additional £180,000 required for post office services is due to increasing charges which have to be met if essential services are to be maintained.
The provision for repatriation and maintenance of distressed Irish citizens abroad was also unrealistically curtailed. In 1980, a sum of £79,000 was paid out by way of repatriation and other advances. For this year also it was clear that demands were running at a level of about £70,000 and yet only £26,000 was provided by the previous Government. Most of the moneys advanced from this subhead are recovered in any event and this is reflected in increased receipts in appropriations-in-aid.
The total of the sums required for the five subheads will, as I have said, be offset to some extent by savings on other subheads. These savings have been achieved mainly by curtailment or deferral of activities. The anticipated increase in appropriations-in-aid of £300,000 arises because of the increase in consular fees as part of the July budget.
With regard to the vote for international co-operation the additional sum required is £60,000. Increased provisions are necessary for two of the subheads to enable us to pay mandatory contributions to international organisations and to the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe. In addition, because of a saving in the current year in our contributions to the European Development Funds established under the Lomé Conventions, it is proposed to redistribute this saving among other elements of Official Development Assistance in the Vote.
With regard to Subhead A of the Vote, an additional sum of £48,000 is required to enable us to pay our contributions for membership of the international organisations of which we are a member. The original provision was not sufficient to meet these obligations, and currency fluctuations also contributed to the increase.
Deputies will be aware that Subhead G of the Vote concerns payments for the benefit of developing countries arising from our membership of the European Economic Community. In the original Estimate, £4.017 million was provided under this heading for the purpose of meeting Ireland's contribution to the Fourth and Fifth European Development Funds established under the Lomé Conventions, and to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), in addition to providing for any contingencies in the matter of exchange rate fluctuations which might arise in the course of the year.
In the event, the Council of the European Communities decided not to call up member states' contributions to the Fifth European Development Fund. The callup from Ireland under the Fourth EDF amounted to £2,299,500. Negotiations on the replenishment of the International Fund for Agricultural Development have suffered setbacks because of, among other things, the failure to agree on the relative contributions of OECD countries as compared with OPEC countries. While the remaining problems regarding the replenishment may yet be settled before the end of the year, payments to IFAD will not now become due before 1982. These developments mean that we have some £1,717,500 available under Subhead G for re-allocation to other areas of aid expenditure.
I propose, therefore, to transfer an amount of £692,500 to Subhead B — contributions to UN voluntary agencies. This will bring the total figure under this subhead to £1,486,500 as compared with the original allocation of £794,000. Thus the reduction suffered by agencies such as UNICEF and the UNDP in the initial allocation for 1981 will be offset.
In the case of the Agency for Personal Service Overseas, I propose to allocate an additional £150,000 to enable the agency to eliminate once and for all its accrued deficit and, in addition, to finance some further assignments overseas before the end of this year.
The disaster relief subhead received only a token sum of £50,000 in the original budget. This does not reflect the importance of this mechanism of distributing aid at the critical time of the immediate aftermath of a disaster. Accordingly, I propose to allocate an additional £300,000 to this heading. Of this £100,000 will be allocated to the relief of distress in EI Salvador; £50,000 will be channelled through Trocaire; and a further £50,000 through the International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
I also propose to allocate an additional sum of £7,500 to the Advisory Council on Development Co-operation to meet the cost of increases in the council's administrative expenses.
The balance of £567,500 will go to the Bilateral Aid Fund. Of this, £100,000 will be allocated to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. A grant of £100,000 was made to this group in 1980 but it was not maintained in the initial allocation in 1981. However, the present re-allocation will restore our contribution to its 1980 level. A further £250,000 will be reserved for co-financing projects with non-governmental organisations and the balance will be allocated to other areas of the Bilateral Aid Programme.
With regard to Subhead I, the contribution towards the expenses of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, it was not possible to forecast accurately the likely duration of the Conference in 1981 nor our estimated contribution thereto. We are obliged to pay our share of the expenses of the conference, and the additional sum of £12,000 now sought will enable us to pay the contributions so far levied.