PAC delegation to visit Ethiopia

The delegation consists of committee Chairman John McGuinness TD, Committee member John Deasy TD and Comptroller & Auditor General Seamus McCarthy. The visit will involve five full working days in which the delegation will view a variety of Irish Aid supported projects in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, including a number of farming initiatives, a co-operative, a school and the Agricultural Research Institute, as well as meeting with Irish Aid and Ethiopian government representatives.

Deputy McGuinness said: “Consideration of Ireland’s Official Development and International Co-operation programmes fall under the remit of the PAC. With our key role in ensuring that there is accountability and transparency in the way Government agencies allocate, spend and manage their finances, it is important that we meet key people on the ground who have responsibility for ensuring that overseas development aid money is spent in accordance with the programmes that are in place.

This visit, at the request of Irish Aid, will form part of the Committee’s examination of Ireland’s overseas development assistance. We will not only be visiting various Irish Aid projects to evaluate the impact of the programmes but we will want to see, at first hand, the controls that govern how aid funding is spent. We will also be keen to meet with key government players, including the chair of the Public Accounts Committee in Ethiopia and the Federal Auditor General, to establish for ourselves that risk management procedures are in place and that the systems of checks and balances are working.

“We spend €27 million in Ethiopia every year and we have been supporting the country for 20 years. It’s a huge country of 86 million people with a largely rural based population and it faces challenges mainly in ensuring food security. The PAC will be looking at not just the way we are supporting everyday life in Ethiopia but also examining what we are achieving in terms of better outcomes. We will be meeting representatives from the IMF and the World Bank to talk about how Ethiopia can become more self-sufficient through trade and exports.”

The Committee will present a report to the Dáil arising from its examination of the aid budget in Ethiopia.

Details of the delegation’s itinerary and the cost of the visit are available on the PAC website here: http://bit.ly/1dDuZvl

For further information please contact:

Ciaran Brennan,
Houses of the Oireachtas,
Communications Unit,
Leinster House,
Dublin 2

P: +3531 618 3903
M: 086-0496518
F: +3531 618 4551

Committee of Public Accounts Membership
 
John McGuinness (Chairman)
Kieran O’Donnell (Vice Chairman)
Paul J Connaughton,
John Deasy,
Áine Collins
Gerald Nash,
Simon Harris,
Robert Dowds,
Mary Lou McDonald,
Sean Fleming,
Eoghan Murphy,
Derek Nolan,
Shane Ross