Africa: President Mary McAleese says she has no doubt Irish taxpayers are getting value for money for the overseas development aid sponsored by the Government.
Speaking in Tanzania on the penultimate day of her three-country tour of Africa, the President praised the investment strategies of Irish Aid, the overseas development wing of the Department of Foreign Affairs, and said she was "very, very hopeful" for the future of the continent.
"It would be a dreadful thing to leave here without that hope, having met such extraordinary people, and having met so many people who are investing their lives and their talents here in order that there will be a new dawn for this country and this continent.
"But, I have to say, we can't take our eye off that ball. That's why I have come here to make sure that in this trip we get that message across . . . that there is a process of accountability."
She said she had raised the issue of corruption with the Tanzanian government, and "they were the first to put up their hands" and admit to a problem. There were small changes in the country which together offered "evidence of a rolling movement in the right direction", she continued.
In all three countries she had visited, the governments there were "trying their best", the President said.
Mrs McAleese, who was speaking to reporters following a tour of a Masai village near Arusha, in northern Tanzania, completes her 12-day visit to Africa today, when she will become the first foreign head of state to address Tanzania's new national parliament in Dodoma.
On a separate note, Mrs McAleese said it was important for her to interrupt the trip in order to attend the funeral in Dublin of Charles Haughey.
But it was also "difficult . . . because there were wonderful things that I wanted to see" in Africa.
She added she would not be drawn into a debate about how Charles Haughey should be remembered out of respect to the former taoiseach's family.
She said she imagined "very, very many more people will enter this debate on all sides. But I have said what I am going to say now, and I think that's the right way to leave it".