Government to review IMRS

A GROUP responsible for distributing €16 million this year to Irish organisations working in third world countries is under review by the Department of Foreign Affairs.

The department’s aid unit, Irish Aid, is examining among other areas the ‘efficiency’ of the Irish Missionary Resource Service (IMRS), which distributes funding to over 80 organisations.

Up to €16 million is allocated for IMRS this year.

“The review will focus primarily on strategic and operational issues relevant to the IMRS and will examine performance from the perspectives of best practice,” according to a department tender.

The review of the funding group for missionaries will focus on the organisation’s “relevance, efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability”.

The missionary fund group, set up in 2004, has missionary organisations as members who hold charitable status.

The Government supplies it with block funding, and, in its three years, IMRS has channelled €31.6m.

The review will see consultants for Irish Aid travelling to one country, expected to be in Africa, where missionary groups will meet the auditors.

Questions from the department include: “Does the quality of reporting and monitoring and evaluation provide the IMRS and Irish Aid with the necessary value-for-money?”

Recipients of aid through IMRS, include schools and youth groups in Peru, Uganda, Nigeria as well as South Africa.

Funds given out in 2005 ranged from a few thousand euro to €690,000 for the Volunteer Missionary Movement, which currently has workers across mainly eastern Africa.

IMRS’s finance manager Seamus O’Gorman yesterday said the group were expecting the review. No problem had arisen, he stressed, adding that the review could lead to fund amounts being either raised or lowered.

Meanwhile, a leading Irish charity yesterday launched a Bebo-style social network website designed to help teenagers debate third world issues.

Trócaire introduced the website, the first of its kind in Ireland, as it also marked the launch of its Lenten campaign.

“The use of technology and new media can help us start a global conversation about ending poverty and changing the circumstances that make and keep people poor,” said director Justin Kilcullen.

See www.trocaire.org/justworld for more details.