Following an internal Department of Foreign Affairs audit it is clear that Ireland’s ability to deliver on our commitments to the world’s poorest are being undermined by the unwillingness of senior civil servants and specialists to transfer to Limerick under the Government’s decentralisation plan.

Media reports this morning confirm what has long been clear from meetings of the Public Accounts Committee and of the Decentralisation Implementation Group with the Finance Committee: the proposed wholesale transfer of Irish Aid to Limerick risks undermining the entire programme.

The unwillingness of specialists to decentralise and the separation of Irish Aid from its mother Department in Dublin will mean that vital expertise will be absent at the very time that spending on overseas aid is to treble over the next five years.

Irish Aid specialists have worked on the ground in Africa and in other parts of the developing world. The loss of their expertise and years of collective experience poses a very real threat to the viability of the Irish Aid programme at a time when it is expanding enormously.

As a result the capacity of civil servants to administer and oversee the spending of over €1 billion per year on schemes designed to directly help the poorest countries in the world will be stretched and probably compromised.

In most instances these very poor countries are in the aftermath of civil war, social and administrative breakdown, with very poor levels of infrastructure. It is vital, therefore, that Irish Aid is as efficient and professional as possible in ensuring that our money actually delivers for the people in these areas and does not end-up wasted or misspent. In order to do so, the best people must be in place to oversee its administration.

I have long-held misgivings about the separation of Irish Aid from the diplomatic capital in Dublin. Decentralisation can work – such as the transfer of sections of the Revenue Commissioners to Limerick – but it is not necessarily the answer for all sections of Government.

I am now calling for the creation of an all-Party review of the decision to decentralise Irish Aid to Limerick.