It is difficult to know where the truth lies in the dispute between the relief agency, Goal, and the Department of Foreign Affairs. What is certain is that the dispute threatens to cast a shadow over all Irish relief agencies, especially their fund-raising capabilities. In essence, the Department has charged Goal with not providing the required information on its spending and says that the agency has not co-operated with an audit which it wants to carry out. Goal, however, claims the Department is engaged in "hair splitting" which is designed to "damage" the organisation.
Goal is Ireland's third largest relief agency. As our Development Correspondent, Paul Cullen, points out today, it has many achievements to its credit. It responds quickly to crises, it ran the best organised refugee camps on the Rwandan border, it has established development projects of real utility. Perhaps of equal importance, its founder, John O'Shea, through his tireless campaigning, has greatly raised Irish awareness of the plight of refugees.
As with some other relief agencies, Goal has its defects. It takes justifiable pride in minimising its overheads so that a high percentage of funds raised actually gets spent in the field. This however, can result in the agency being run in a seat-of-the-pants style which is incompatible with proper planning and long-term strategy. Unexpected decisions of great consequence are taken suddenly and communicated poorly.
The allegations against Goal issued yesterday by the Department of Foreign Affairs are of a different order however. They charge that Goal has not detailed individual grant information in its audited accounts. The Department says also that Goal sought double funding, that it applied for funds concerning Angolan assignments when they had been "fully funded" by the European Community.
Fully-funded does not mean that the assignment's costs were fully covered. Obviously Goal must, in future, detail each grant in its audited accounts but was this omission sufficient justification for the Department's termination of Goal's funding? On the issue of double-funding, Goal has already admitted a "technical error" when filling out application forms for funding. The European Community carried out an audit, the results of which, according to the Department, are not yet available.
What the Department does not say is that preliminary results are available they found errors of limited scope which probably resulted from inadequate knowledge of EU rules. In other words, Goal is not guilty of any major irregularity. The Department says Goal is not co-operating with the Department's own auditors. Goal says it is.
Relations between John O'Shea and the Department are atrocious. He has criticised vehemently the direction and efficiency of its aid programme.
However, it could be said that for a person to criticise others when his own organisation comes into question, is a bit rich. There is much anecdotal evidence that while Mr O'Shea has many talents, management of an organisation (especially a complex relief agency) may not be one of them. This would not matter so much if Mr O'Shea had put in place a proper structure where authority is devolved and everyone, no matter how senior, is accountable. Goal, it would seem, needs to be reconstituted. It does not need to be made redundant.