THE Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs yesterday heard conflicting versions of events involving Irish aid workers in the Segundo Montes district of El Salvador in 1993.

These events were the subject of a recent series of articles in The Irish Times, which revived the controversy. The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ms Joan Burton, has requested the Agency for Personal Service Overseas to conduct a further investigation into the affair, and a three member sub group of the board of APSO has been given this task.

Mr Michael Greene of the development co operation division of the Department of Foreign Affairs told the committee that the community of Segundo Montes was composed of former refugees from the El Salvador civil war.

In the process of resettlement in El Salvador, community cohesion came under strain and the situation became "highly charged and, indeed, acrimonious".

As many as 3,000 people, or about one quarter of the population, left the area as a result. A small number of volunteers supported by APSO were caught up in the situation and their activities came in for criticism. They, too, eventually left the area.

Mr Greene pointed out that the Department and APSO had no reason to believe these volunteers had behaved in anything other than a proper and correct manner. APSO, a semi state body under the aegis of the Department, would make its report to the Minister of State quite quickly.

The chief executive of APSO, Mr Paul Beggan, said recent publicity on the affair had been rather unbalanced and unfair. He rejected outright any suggestion that APSO had blocked or inhibited funding to Segundo Montes.

The report in The Irish Times that the Irish were no longer welcome in the area was "grossly unfair and a ludicrous suggestion".

The chairman of APSO, Prof Anthony Clare, said the Irish Times articles contained "very damaging accusations".

It was exceedingly important for APSO workers that those accusations were investigated and answered.

Several members of the committee sharply criticised the Irish Times articles. Mr Ben Briscoe (FF) described them as "garbage".

Prof Clare said there had been considerable delay on the part of The Irish Times in publishing a reply written by Mr Beggan to the articles in question, and this delay had caused concern among APSO workers in the field.

A different view of the 1993 events was presented to the committee by Mr Brendan Butler of the Irish-El Salvador Support Committee. He described the Irish Times series as "thought provoking", adding: "The people of Segundo Montes are indebted to The Irish Times."

He said that in the summer of 1993 a dispute arose between four Irish technical aid workers and the community of Segundo Montes, who dismissed the workers and took an advertisement in the national press denouncing them. The support committee believed the aid workers, who occupied pivotal positions, had extended their remit and acted against the best interests of the community.

The community had been blacklisted internationally and almost all international funding had ceased. Trocaire had cut off all funds to Segundo Montes.

The committee should call on the Irish Government to make a public apology to the community of Segundo Montes and the good name of the community be restored.

Mr Butler said an independent inquiry was needed. It was difficult to accept the notion of people investigating themselves.

The chairman of the committee, Mr Alan Dukes (FG) was also critical of the articles. But he added that it was difficult to accept a report by APSO on its own activities and he suggested that a structure be put in place whereby the report would be subjected to a critical review.

He was very anxious that any report be made available to the committee and there would be arguments for considering it in private session because of possible implications for people in the field.