Vol. 548 No. 5
110 Mr. Sargent asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the payments made by his Department from 1997 to date to environmental non-governmental organisations detailing the nature and extent of the projects; the amount and dates of their payments excluding multi-stakeholder bodies; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5617/02]
Ireland Aid makes a large number of payments to NGOS and international organisations for development purposes. These payments are for projects right across the development spectrum including, inter alia, health, education, agriculture, water, sanitation, and construction. These projects are primarily multi-sectoral and poverty focused. As the environment is a cross-cutting issue, many of these projects have an environmental aspect.
A full list of all such projects over the years, including payments and specific locations, is outlined in the Ireland Aid annual reports, which are available in the Oireachtas Library. These reports, the latest of which is for 2000, also give a comprehensive outline of the overall sectoral and geographic focus of the aid programme. The annual report for 2001 will be published later this year.
For convenience, I am forwarding separately to the Deputy the last three published reports.
Apart from these, there have been no other payments from the Department of Foreign Affairs to environmental NGOs since 1997.
