Government aid will not be withdrawn from Uganda, despite the murder of Father Declan O'Toole and corruption issues in the African state, Minister of State, Ms Liz O'Donnell, has said.
She said extensive audits and safeguards are in place to ensure all of the aid from the State's taxpayers goes towards helping "the poorest of the poor" of the country.
This year, more than €35 million in Government aid will go to Uganda, an amount which will be spent on health, education, water and sanitation, rural transport, governance, and developing areas of the country.
Ms O'Donnell, who is Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, also said it was "unfortunate to link this tragic death with the wider political agenda of the government of Uganda".
Speaking at the publication of the report of the Ireland Aid Review Committee, Ms O'Donnell said the Irish ambassador to Uganda has told the Government there of the State's concern over the execution of two Ugandan soldiers for murdering Father O'Toole and two other men.
Meanwhile, it emerged yesterday from reliable sources in Uganda that the two soldiers who were executed and were alleged to have admitted to the killing, subsequently denied their involvement at a court martial hearing.
Mr John O'Shea of aid agency GOAL had said "giving one euro to the Ugandan regime would be morally indefensible", as it had a corrupt government and was a one-party state, which had thousands of troops located in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a country it had extensively plundered of precious resources.
However, Ms O'Donnell said the report "gives very high priority to accountability, oversight and value for money of Irish taxpayers' funds".
Control measures include an integrated accounting system which covers the entire aid programme, an annual external audit of the six priority country programmes in Africa, and the em- ployment of qualified accounting staff and internal audit staff.
These six countries receiving bilateral aid from the State are: Ethiopia, Lesotho, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
Overall, the overseas development aid (ODA) for 2002 will be €463 million, of which the Department of Foreign Affairs will spend €372 million.
Aid agency Trócaire welcomed the review, which it said "makes a valuable contribution to development policy and practice".