MINISTER FOR FOREIGN affairs Helen McEntee has labelled the furore caused by opposition parties over the decision by Paschal Donohoe to allocate an extra €10 million in funding to the World Bank as “absolute nonsense”, calling it a “political stunt”. 

In the Dáil yesterday afternoon, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald and Social Democrats deputy leader Cian O’Callaghan individually sought clarity on the timeline of the decision by Paschal Donohoe to increase funding to the World Bank.

Donohoe made the decision to allocate €141.4 million instead of €131.4 million to the World Bank in April 2025 when he was still in his role as minister for finance.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald stated yesterday that this was of note due to the fact that Donohoe left government to take up a role as managing director and chief knowledge officer at the World Bank in November 2025.

However, speaking to reporters today in Jordan, McEntee said: “I’m going to be really honest, I think this is a political stunt.

“If you look at the facts, every year for the last number of years, we’ve increased our funding to the World Bank.

“We’ve increased our funding [again], and we’ve done that because our foreign policy is based on investment in development, investment in human rights and in aid.”

She said that she has received a lot of positive feedback about Irish people in Egypt and Jordan because “we invest in aid and development”. 

“If you look at the last number of years, [funding for the World Bank] actually increased every year. So this is no different,” she said. 

“When you look at the fact that aid is such a strong priority for us, even in my own department, it’s an absolute priority that we support, and we increase at times when other countries are pulling back.

“Even when our economy has been in trouble, we always increase our aid. That shouldn’t change,” she said.

McEntee believes that Paschal Donohoe should not have to appear before a Dáil committee to defend his decision to allocate extra funding for the World Bank.

She said that she hopes people will have watched him over the past number of years and know that this is “exactly how he works”.

“You know exactly how he approaches finances,” she told reporters.

“It’s about how we make sure we’re spending money in the best way, whether it’s investment at home or whether it’s giving funding abroad.

“Paschal has always calculated what is in the best interest for our country, and how do we make sure our money is spent well?”

“And I think anybody who’s looked at Paschal over the last however many years, decade plus, that he’s been in politics, will know that that’s how he’s always operated.”

“I think the facts are very clear. We’ve consistently increased our support and our aid. We’ve consistently supported the World Bank, we’ve consistently supported aid organisations, and that’s just what happened here,” she said.

With additional reporting from Eimer McAuley