A GOVERNMENT MINISTER has said that Ireland will not cut aid budgets, unlike other countries, and he is advocating to have the allocation increased. 

Neale Richmond, the Minister of State for International Development and Diaspora, made the comments during a visit to Sierra Leone and Liberia where he went to a number of Irish Aid projects. 

Richmond worked in the aid sector before becoming a TD, and lived in Ghana for a period. 

“It’s really important that we actually go and visit countries with Irish Aid projects in them particularly, to be quite frank, because other actors in the world are cutting their aid budgets, and we’re not,” he said. 

He told The Journal that as countries such as the US, the UK and other places reduce their spend on international aid, Ireland does not believe that this is an appropriate way to handle crises. 

“I think the responsibility in the international community now, particularly for countries like Ireland, is to stress why international development matters and how it genuinely impacts a man and woman in poverty,” he said. 

He said that aid is a way to ease problems in developing countries which can have an impact on other countries too. 

“The more we have global instability, the more we have mass migration, the more we have conflict, the more that impacts our lives, the more our energy prices go up.

“Unfortunately, international development has become something that was just easy to cut or easy to undermine for some states.

“I’m really disappointed in fellow politicians in other countries who have allowed it to become something that so easily dismissed when, at the same time, they’re dealing with the very real consequences of making [these things] priority issues in their own countries,” he said. 

Richmond believes the cutting of aid is a “strategic failure rather than an altruistic failure” of the international community. 

“This is actually how you combat the issues that the world faces, the big macro issues,” he added. 

Richmond said that his aim now is to convince other Irish government colleagues to increase the allocations for international aid. 

“Firstly, I’ll be going to my ministerial colleagues at Budget time and telling them that not only do we need to maintain our allocation, but we need to seriously look at increasing it, despite the very real economic challenges that we’re facing,” he said. 

Richmond will also be advocating for more communication with the public about why the funding is important. 

“This isn’t something that we should be doing in silence, we need to sell it. We need to justify it,” he added. 

The Irish State is a rare European country with embassies in both Liberia and Sierra Leone. Richmond said this shows Ireland’s commitment to helping the people in both countries. 

Sierra Leone is one of the ten poorest countries in the world. “It’s a level of poverty that most people can’t appreciate,” Richmond said. “A distinct lack of electricity, no rural electrification, rolling blackouts, but in most cases, there are signs for hope,” he said. 

Both countries are also still suffering the fall out from their own civil wars. 

“These are two countries that are facing really distinct challenges in terms of providing the population basic needs beyond what we take for granted. That includes running water and electricity. I am talking about the ability for girls to go to secondary school and not be married as teenagers, or have children as child brides,” he added. 

Neale Richmond laying a wreath at the monument to Sgt Derek Mooney, an Army Ranger Wing operator killed while on a peacekeeping mission in Liberia. DFA DFA

While on the visit the Minister also visited the monument to Army Ranger Wing operator Sergeant Derek Mooney who was killed in a car crash in Liberia while serving on a peacekeeping mission in 2003.