THE MINISTER of State for Overseas Development Aid has defended officials and civil servants working in the sector following scathing criticism by a businessman whose charity builds homes for the poor in South Africa.
Peter Power said yesterday he could not accept the comments made by businessman Niall Mellon about the Government’s agency Irish Aid.
In a newspaper interview this week, Mr Mellon accused the aid programme of being “grindingly slow”. He also claimed officials had to be “dragged to the table” when it came to funding housing.
Mr Mellon also contended that some officials who had dealt with his charity, the Niall Mellon Township Trust, had not been prepared to work outside Civil Service hours.
The trust received €5 million from the ODA budget last year.
However, in a strong rebuttal yesterday, Mr Power defended his officials and said the charity had yet to provide a financial report on the €5 million aid it had received.
Speaking at the Oireachtas Committee on European Affairs, Mr Power said: “I simply cannot accept the criticisms that have been made of Irish Aid officials and Irish civil servants.”
He said the programme was world-class and effective, had been endorsed by the OECD, and was results-driven.
“I think the criticism is ill-founded and very disappointing. We will be insisting on full accountability of Irish taxpayers’ money. We gave €5 million to NM Trust last year, and are still waiting for a financial report on how the money was spent. That is an issue that we will be pursuing very vigorously.”
A spokeswoman for Irish Aid said last night the report had been requested “a number of times over the last few months” but the trust had still not provided it.
However, Dominic Loughran, director of operations with the charity, yesterday denied it had failed to supply the report on time.
He insisted the trust had submitted a detailed report last September to Irish Aid outlining where the €5 million grant had been spent, and that receipt of the report was acknowledged. “We believe Ireland Aid will correct their incorrect statement today and we have requested them to do so. The trust is on target to submit another application for funding by year-end.”
Mr Mellon, who is in Cape Town this week with 950 house-building volunteers, had criticised Irish Aid’s lack of risk-taking, describing his frustration “as an entrepreneur” with delays in the system. He claimed that when members of Irish Aid recently visited the charity’s sites they “finished working at 4pm, in keeping with Civil Service times”.
This week’s volunteers with the trust hope today to hand over most of the 200 houses they are building in the township of Wallacedene.