The money is part of a €520 million aid package from the EU to help Mali rebuild its country following a war with Islamist militants earlier this year.
The additional Irish Aid funding will go towards to delivering vital assistance – including food, water, sanitation and medical supplies – to more than 700,000 Syrian refugees.
The amount was 12 per cent less than the nearly €180 million given to countries including Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Timor Leste and Vietnam in 2011.
A delegation from the Committee of Public Accounts will travel there against a backdrop of revelations that Irish Aid funds in Uganda were misappropriated.
Two senior government officials are on remand facing prosecution, while 17 have been suspended without pay while investigations continue into the misappropriation.
Fine Gael TD Simon Harris has called for the powerful Dáil committee to investigate Irish overseas aid following the misappropriation of millions of euro sent to Uganda.
With the government suspending aid to Uganda yesterday, we’re asking should Ireland be distributing foreign aid while still under the terms of a bailout?
The media shapes our picture of global health threats, writes Glendora Meikle – and the unglamorous, smelly, downright deadly conditions are too often left out.
Joe Costello, Minister of State for Trade and Development, relates the dire tales of massacre and suffering told to him by Syrian refugees when he visited them in Jordan this week.
The junior foreign minister will visit a refugee camp in Jordan this week where it’s expected he will announce a significant increase in humanitarian aid for people displaced by the civil war.
Irish Aid has delivered aid worth €8.2 million to the region. Meanwhile aid agency GOAL has criticised the UN for “reluctance” to provide peacekeepers, and has said the “international community “has no stomach to tackle terrorists”.
As yet more civilian die at the hands of government forces in the besieged Libyan city of Misrata, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore says Ireland has “a responsibility to act”.
BILL CLINTON has said that donor countries are still holding out on pledges made to rebuild Haiti.
Clinton, who is chairman of the reconstruction fund, said last week that less than 10% of the $5.3bn pledged has been lodged with the fund, and Ireland is one such country that has yet to make good on its promise.
Ireland has pledged over €13m to fund the reconstruction, but only €4m in emergency aid has been received.
RTE.ie has revealed that the remaining funding was expected to go to the Haiti Reconstruction Fund but a spokesperson for Irish Aid said that no funding has yet been transferred.
A spokesperson for Irish Aid has said it may take till 2012 to lodge all the money.
ONE OF AMERICA’S biggest child beauty pageant organisers is set to spend €20,000 staging their first-ever Irish contest in September.
The Herald reports today that beauty bosses said it will be open to “babies, toddlers and teens” and will also include a heat with kids in swimwear.
Some parents believe that contests celebrates their children’s beauty, helps them learn about camaraderie and boosts their self-confidence. While others think that beauty pageants send out the wrong kind of message to children and that the costumes and make-up involved sexualises kids.
So, today we would like to know: Would you enter your child in a beauty pageant?
Times of clouds and sun
Max: 13 °C
Min: 3 °C
Mostly cloudy with afternoon rain
Max: 15 °C
Min: 7 °C
Partly sunny with a passing shower
Max: 17 °C
Min: 7 °C
