Newstalk’s Kieran Cuddihy accompanied the Tanaiste Eamon Gilmoreon his Irish aid trip to Northern Uganda last week. The Labour leader was visiting a number of development projects in Uganda, Kenya and Somalia in order to see how Irish Aid was spending it’s €639m budget. Eamon Gilmore was the first high ranking Irish politician to visit the country in 20 year

Kieran said “the place looked like a war zone. And then you have this school in the middle of it. It caters for almost 800 students who wouldn’t otherwise get an education. The cost of rebuilding was €180,000 and it’s one of six schools that have been reopened thanks to Irish Aid and Concern and altogether they have 6,000 students enrolled. The running costs for that whole project are €600,000 per year so about €100 per child.”

Irish Aid focus on 9 countries, what they call programme countries. Besides Vietnam, the rest are all in Africa. As well as Somalia, the Tanaiste was also visiting projects in Uganda and Kenya.

In Karamoja, Uganda, 75% of people live below the poverty line. The under five mortality rate is 174 per 1000, life expectancy is only 47 and only 11% of people are literate. But Irish aid provide a very simple bursary for students to go to secondary school. We spoke to some of those students. Two were now in college, thanks to the bursary and two were in the equivalent of their leaving cert year.

The Government has what is called the Africa Strategy and that places trade and economic ties with African countries  as a central aim in our oversees aid strategy. The Tanaiste met with representatives of DCU, and a number of Irish companies, Trinity Biotech and Seneca Security. All three are active in African markets.

Kieran’s documentary about that trip and about the work that Irish Aid is doing in Uganda, Kenya and Somalia will air in the Autumn.