Cabinet Committees
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-13
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

There is an important point to make because comments have been made about the former Minister, Paschal Donohoe and the International Development Association. First, the IDA provides highly concessional finance, grants and zero or low-interest loans to the world's poorest countries and supports 75 of the poorest countries globally, including 39 in Africa. It is the largest single donor for basic social services in these countries.
The IDA 21 negotiations concluded in Korea in December 2024 and covered IDA operations for July 2025 to June 2028. The World Bank developed multiple funding scenarios, low, medium, high and very high. Indicative contribution arrangements were provided to each donor, including Ireland. Scenarios are non-binding. Countries may choose higher, lower or no contribution. Ireland could not pledge at the December 2024 meeting due to the general election on 29 November and the convention that outgoing Ministers do not make binding financial commitments for a subsequent government.
The Irish delegation noted that a new Government decision and business case would be required. The World Bank kept the pledging window open until mid-February 2025 and the final IDA21 package was approved by the World Bank board thereafter. A formal business case was prepared in line with public expenditure guidelines. That was the Department of Finance business case. The assessment was on alignment with Ireland's multilateral development policy, bank governance approach, financial implications, comparison with prior Irish contributions and commitments by peer European Union and OECD countries. The options examined - this is from the Department of Finance information - included going from no contribution to maintaining the IDA20 level, that is, €105 million. The low option was €141.4 million. The high option was €158.9 million.

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Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-13/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:30+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-13