THE OIREACHTAS Committee on Foreign Affairs is to examine claims that Irish aid to El Salvador has been used in a politically partisan way, and that as a result Irish aid workers are no longer welcome there.
The committee decided yesterday to invite representatives of the Agency for Personal Service Overseas (APSO) and of the Department of Foreign Affairs to attend a meeting to discuss the allegation's.
The decision follows reports in The Irish Times that Irish aid workers had been accused of taking the side of the government in a dispute which began in 1993.
A Salvadoran human rights lawyer, Ms Maria Julia Hernandez, told the committee yesterday that she did not know a lot about the situation, but had heard that there had been certain problems in the village of Segundo Montes.
Mr Pat Gallagher (Lab) said that any work with the poor in El Salvador "is bound to be interpreted in a political fashion. My own view is that a particular situation which happened in the past has been written up as if it were a contemporary problem. The implications drawn from it are unwarranted."
Senator Michael Lanigan (FE) said he believed Irish volunteers with APSO were being put at risk because of hostility to them from some people in Segundo Montes. "We have a responsibility to the people who go out for APSO to find the truth of the situation."
Mr Jim O'Keeffe (FG) said The Irish Times had given "a one sided, highly personalised attack on people who went out from Ireland with the best intentions. What we lack is their case."