John O'Shea raises many thorny issues about Irish Aid, and asks a lot of very awkward questions, writes David Adams
SINCE DECEMBER of last year, following a piece I did on foreign aid distribution, a few Department of Foreign Affairs officials have been telling anyone who will listen that I am "employed by" or "under contract to" John O'Shea and/or his aid organisation Goal.
I wouldn't normally dignify this sort of nonsense with a response but, as I am about to tackle the subject again, I feel compelled to set the record straight. I make no secret of, or apologise for, the fact that I admire the work that Goal does, and have the highest regard for its founder and chief executive officer.
I also happen to agree wholeheartedly with his opposition to the channelling of aid through corrupt or dictatorial governments.
If I did not agree with him, I would have no hesitation in saying so. For better or worse, I tend to make my own mind up on things.
To claim that the position I have taken is down to some mutually beneficial arrangement is to impugn both O'Shea's and my integrity, but that, of course, is the object of the exercise. Still, I fully realise that I am largely incidental in this, having merely wandered into the line of fire. The real target of the whisperers is O'Shea himself: he raises too many thorny issues and asks too many awkward questions for the department's liking.
It's true that Government officials will pay occasional public tribute to him and his organisation, but always in a damning-with-faint-praise kind of way, and as a precursor to attacking a few carefully selected, taken out of context or deliberately misinterpreted points he has raised. And never without mentioning how much Government funding Goal receives - as if the fact that Goal's work is partly funded by the Government should be enough to ensure the silence of this "ingrate".
Whatever about public pronouncements, try praising O'Shea in private conversation with some of these people and watch their hackles rise. Anyway, enough about that for the time being.
The arguments against channelling aid through corrupt governments have been well rehearsed, but are no less potent for that. To put it at its mildest, this approach guarantees that much less aid than intended will reach the unfortunate people who need it most.
While governments continue to receive financial support regardless of brutal or dishonest practices, they will see no reason to change, indeed the extra "no-strings-attached" capital will probably strengthen their grip on power.
Furthermore, the precedent set makes it infinitely more difficult to persuade other neighbouring administrations to embark, or continue, on a process of democratisation.
Those who publicly defend Irish Aid's current methods of distribution have of late been employing an argument that - if you don't think about it too much - can appear quite reasonable. The general thrust is that if the EU had followed O'Shea's advice and withheld money from countries with some history of political corruption, then Ireland would not have qualified for the massive funding it has received.
However, attempting to draw equivalence between Ireland and Irish Aid recipient countries deliberately ignores all of the universally applicable freedoms, legal safeguards and monitoring mechanisms that exist in this part of the world.
We are free to scrutinise, ask questions of, and hold to public account any citizen up to and including the most powerful in the land.
How many aid-recipient countries can you say that about? How many of these countries can boast of anything even remotely comparable to the non-partisan police service and legal and judicial systems that operate in Ireland (not to mention the oversight role played by various commissions, ombudsmen, tribunals and a free media)? Of course, there is political corruption in every country, including Ireland, but that is hardly the point.
The important thing is whether there is the political will, necessary freedoms and legal infrastructure in place to combat it. In most Irish Aid recipient countries there patently is not, so the onus for scrupulous oversight naturally rests with the donor.
It is also argued that it is "patronising" (this is code for racist or colonialist) to advocate the bypassing of corrupt or brutal regimes in the distribution of aid.
In fact, the Department of Foreign Affairs is legally bound to do everything possible to ensure that freely given aid, ie Irish taxpayers' money, is used solely for the purposes for which it is intended.
If this means bypassing a foreign government that cannot be trusted to distribute aid to its own people, then so be it.
I would contend that it is racist and colonialist to argue that African governments should be held to less stringent standards than the rest of us simply because they are African.
There exists a belief that Irish Aid recipient regimes will somehow see the error of their ways and voluntarily become more open, honest and democratic. Not surprisingly, this theory has yet to be supported by any evidence. What with smear campaigns and a flat refusal to release audit figures into the public domain, there is, in fact, more evidence of bad habits being picked up by a donor.