Irelands 2012 budget: How much for Overseas AID?

Pride Fighter wrote: »

0.7%. Despite being in an economic quagmire, we are still one of the worlds wealthiest nations. The 0.7% would do a lot to alleviate world hunger and improve education. Education is the key, if we can increase literacy levels that would in turn create greater levels of self-sufficiency as education is the great liberator and always will be.

I'd agree with much of this, but I think there needs to be a total overhaul of how we distribute our aid, and who it goes to. I know that much of it goes to NGOs, but this should increase, and accountability should be a key factor in deciding where the aid is delivered.

Manach wrote: »

Whilst I'd be supportive of some level of oversea's aid (pre-Boom era 1996)- this is money that the State can ill-afford to spend as they are relying on IMF/EU aid to keep afloat, the money can be better spent on Irish citizens, and given the raft of new taxes/levys/charges that are incoming in the budget, can the ordinary taxpayer afford yet another hit to the wallet though this enforced charity.

What do you mean the aid can be much better spent on Irish taxpayers? How so? I understand the desire to see Irish people benefit from Irish tax receipts, but I don't think it's true that Irish people would benefit more from the money than, say, a Somali woman living in a refugee camp. €200 is one week's dole for an Irish resident; it's 6 months wages in Somalia- and that's the average. So, in terms of efficacy, I'd say that the money would be much better spent in Somalia than in Ireland.

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

I actually agree with you here, I think we should halt all aid for the time being, at least until we re-enter the bond markets and then we should probably give somewhere in the neighbourhood of 0.30% ODA/GNI.

If the objection to aid is that we're borrowing it, how does waiting until we enter bond markets change anything?

Broads.ie wrote: »

A few people here are under the illusion that our aid money actually gets used for it's intended purpose.

Much of it does get used for its intended purposes. I assume that you'll google some abuse of aid cases and use this to prove your point, but one can promote any POV through cherrypicking evidence.

That is not to say that the aid systam is perfect. Of course it;s not, and there are abuses. But IMO, the correct response to this is to reform the system, rather than abolish it altogether. The Social Welfare system in Ireland is subject to widespread abuse. Should we just abolish it? Or seek to reduce fraud as the current government is doing?

Wasn't that said by every western country every year for the last 50 years? Look at the state of Africa now. It's WORSE than it was at independence.

Africa isn't some monolithic entity. There are many nations in Africa which are better off now than they were 50 years ago. others have slipped back somewhat, but one can't make gorss generalisations about such a diverse continent.

The subject of foreign aid and how it can be decreased should be on the radios every day. I see people constantly giving out about dole leechers here on boards, why don't they give out this other waste of money? I'm not saying that all aid should be cut tomorrow, but it should be slashed considerably, with a set goal of having foreign aid donations (to corrupt nations at least) non-existent in the near future.

How do you define "corrupt nations". Every country is corrupt in some way. Even if we agree to cut aid to "most corrupt" countries, that will have no impact on the rulers of these states. They'll continue to live in luxury as their citizens die on the streets. Far better, IMO, to reform the system so that the aid flows through well-audited NGOs, rather than into state coffers.

African leaders are taking the west for a ride, they see no end to this aid and they are feckin' loving it! The World Bank are arriving in Kenya soon to try and figure out how 3.5million dollars went missing from an Arid Lands project.

That's pocket change though. 35 million dollars have recently gone missing from the Kenyan Education Ministry (part funded by western tax money). By the way, the Minister of Education is still in office! He didn't even get a slap on the wrist and he is now laughing all the way to the bank.

Such misuse of funds is not restricted to Afrian nations. Only last year, it was discovered that €500k of union funding provided by the state had gone missing. The officials involved received reprimands but none lost their positions. We all know the activities of the ikes of Michael Lowry and Ray Burke in the 90s and earlier. I don't really think we're in a position to cherrypick incidents of malfeasance in other countries, and use them to condemn entire nations. Does Kenya have problems? Of course. However it is doing better in many sense than it was at the start of the century, and to pull all funding would set the place back immensely- which would be a waste of any money we have spent there.

There is so much wrong with foreign aid right now, but the average joe doesn't really seem to care.

I'd consider myself an average Joe and I do care. Just because someone doesn't share your opinion on something, doesn't mean they don't have any opinion. I agree that there is much wrong with the foreign aid system, but I also know that to abolish it, or cut it dramatically, would lead to untold misery, suffering, and death- on a scale incomparable with the crrent situation in Ireland. I want to see aid reformed rather than abolished. I think we are moving in that direction, have much more to do, but an imperfect system is better IMO than no system at all.

Broads.ie wrote: »

I recently emailed Irish Aid and asked them to comment on how Uganda recently spent €512m military jets, and why the hell are we funding this homophobic anti-west dictator? (Remember the homosexuality death penalty bill recently?)

Here is an excerpt of the reply:.......

................So issues were raised. Concerns were expressed. That's great. Now send Uganda another few million euros ... the crayturs.

Isn't it the biggest waste of our aid money? We are spending millions of euros feeding and educating Museveni's poverty stricken people, but it turns out that he actually had about €500 million to spare! Wha, he must have found it down the back of his couch.

There are quite a few reasons why Broads.ie gets the "Overly Inquisitive Punter" response from Irish Aid but the primary one is self-preservation.....The various Governmental and Non-Governmental agencies involved in collecting,counting and distributing "Aid" to Africa are all serious employers in their own right.

Their senior people get to travel hither,tither and yon,attending conferences,symposia and the likes in the never ending search for an answer to African poverty...all,of course,funded by whatever few cent they can appropriate from our Universal Service Charge and whatever other taxes we can be made pay.

It's kinda Pythonesque in a way,but we in the West have just deposed a supposedly mad,evil Dictator in Libya's Colonel Gadaffi....a leader who made one of the most significant contributions towards ending his peoples poverty by bringing them fresh WATER in amazing quantities.....

http://www.water-technology.net/projects/gmr/

Yet our Irish money goes to prop up the likes of Musaveni....we badly need a face-palm smiley here....:(

caseyann wrote: »

It would make them get off their keisters and force their own governments to take care of their own country and stop relying on foreign aid to save them forever.

Yeah because the tens of millions of people suffering from malnutrition in the world are doing so out of their own free will, simply because they won't "get off their keisters". Such insight...

Also, it takes a very naive worldview to believe that a tyrannical dictator will suddenly see the light and decide to do right by his people once the West abolishes aid. The removal of foreign aid will generally not matter a jot to the people in power. They'll just steal more from their people to fund their lifestyles.

Give them the tools and let them build their own country.

One moment you're advocating removing aid; the next you're proposing we "give them the tools". What is that except a form of aid?

caseyann wrote: »

I hate when people dissect the posts when all same post.

In other words, you hate when people reply to the points you make.

Then the people will stand up and be counted.Taking their own lives in their own hands and government will be over thrown.

Oh. My. God. You really think it's that easy? That murderous dictatorships can be just overthrown with a snap of the fingers? By a starving populace? They can barely swat the flies from their faces, but by God, up they'll get and thrown down the oppressive dictator who's just spend millions on artillery and warplanes.

Are you serious?

They control their own futures and people are dying anyway so aid is not working is it.

No, they don't control their own futures. And people are dying alright, but far more would be dying were aid abolished. Your statement is akin to saying that some Irish children go hungry, so social welfare couldn't be working.

Give them the tools yes that could have been paid for thousands of times already.

So you agree with aid? What else could providing tools be unless aid?

Manach wrote: »

If I must be part of a Government wealth redistributive scheme, the money spent in Ireland will improve our own infrastructure/people who are able to then be more productive and will benefit the whole of Irish taxpayers and increase our GDP.

The first part is fair enough, and I understand your POV. But I don't think it stands to scrutiny that an amount of money spent on alleviating hunger in a Somali refugee camp would be better spent in Ireland providing someone with the dole. My issue isn't so much with spending the money in Ireland, but with the notion that it would be better spent in Ireland.

caseyann wrote: »

no it means what it said.I dont need to debate with you anymore i said my point and i stand by it.
I dont care if you agree with me or not.

Of course you don't need to debate- nobody's forcing you. And of course you don't care whether I agree with you- it would be a boring place of everyone did. But your point is contradictory. You want to abolish aid, and yet provide people with the tools to determine their own future. Which is a form of aid.

caseyann wrote: »

A form of tools to help themselves is like building wells and farming incentive's,Such as green houses etc.. and i have no objection to that.But get this stuff built in our countries and fly them there no more cash.And then they do what they got to do work for themselves.
Endless money thrown down meaningless aid in the way it is is pointless and only viscous circle.
It was meant to be a solution not a lifetime thing.

You think we should build wells in Ireland and fly them out to the nations that need them?

passarellaie wrote: »

The reality that Ireland is sending hundreds of millions of euro to unaccountable ngos and foreign dictatorships is ludicrous in the extreme given the situation that pertains in this country today when tens of thousands of our best young people are fleeing the country in an attempt to get work.
Yet another example of quango madness

Do you have evidence to prove that the NGos to which Ireland provide funding are generally unaccountable?