Mr. Barry Andrews:

I thank the Chairman and members for the kind invitation to attend today. As the Chairman pointed out, GOAL has been operating in some of the poorest parts of the world on behalf of some of the poorest people in the world since the late 1970s. We are currently operating in 13 countries and employ almost 3,000 staff, most of whom are nationals of the countries in which we work.

Today I will talk about our latest intervention, which is in Syria. I very much welcome the opportunity. As the Chairman said, I returned from Syria less than two weeks ago. I had an opportunity to examine our operation there. I will talk about that experience in the context of the conflict in general.

I reviewed the transcripts of this committee from December, when representatives of Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF, attended to speak about their experience in Syria. I respect the committee's ongoing prioritisation of this subject. It is worth pointing out that when the committee spoke to MSF, the death toll was 40,000. Today, just four months later, it is almost 80,000. In December, there were 1 million displaced individuals but the number has more than doubled since then. All of the indicators suggest the conflict will get worse. Last week, Mr. António Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said this is the worst humanitarian crisis since the Cold War. These are very strong words. After the Rwandan genocide, the United Nations tried to reflect on how it could ensure it would not happen again. One method of answering the question was to develop a concept whereby it could reconcile the sovereignty of a state with the duty to protect that state's citizens in circumstances in which they are subjected to mass atrocities, human rights violations and, in some cases, chemical attacks. The United Nations answered the question through its principle of the responsibility to protect. The objective was to establish that the sovereignty of a state is a duty rather than a right. Where a country fails to discharge its duty to protect its citizens from the kinds of attacks in question, it will engage the UN obligations, from which consequences flow.

Two years since the beginning of the conflict in Syria, there is total paralysis in respect of the international community's response. As such, the United Nations is in a position in which it cannot find its voice, with the consequence that people are suffering. Since this committee last discussed the issue, a further 40,000 people have died. In June, when harvests will be very much diminished, challenges will arise in regard to resources. Those challenges will lead to further conflict, and the reality is that by some stage in the summer the death toll will have exceeded 100,000. The words of Mr. Guterres may not be hyperbole and may be accurate.

The US President, Mr. Barack Obama, has said the use of chemical weapons would be a red-line issue for the United States and that it would not turn a blind eye to their use. However, as we have seen, the French and UK Governments and the brigadier general in Israel have said in the past 24 hours that they are satisfied that chemical weapons have been used in the Syrian conflict. This makes us wonder whether any political solution to the conflict can be found.

Let me concentrate on GOAL's intervention in Syria. We decided we would operate inside Syria because we felt that those with the fewest resources are those who are least able to get out of the country. In the context of post-conflict reconciliation, it is much better to try to help people who are already in the country to stay in the country. Thus, we decided to intervene within the Syrian borders. GOAL is the only Irish NGO inside Syria providing intervention for those affected by the conflict.

GOAL began its intervention using its own resources by providing aid in the northern province of Idlib. Subsequently, it partnered with Irish Aid and, more recently, the US Government through Food for Peace and OFTA. We are scaling up our intervention and hope it will reach almost 250,000 people by the summer. Having said that, we recognise the need is escalating beyond any measurements taken at the beginning of the year.

Of the money pledged by donor governments at the beginning of the year, only 20% has been honoured. I recognise that the international community, in failing to achieve unity of purpose and a unified platform, is hamstrung, but it should at least do what it said it would do. It said it would honour the pledges and has not done so. Every day, we hear from UN agents that they cannot do their work. As recently as last week, Ms Valerie Amos, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, stated this is a humanitarian catastrophe. One can have sympathy for the fact that the UN Security Council cannot achieve unity of purpose but one cannot have sympathy for the fact that the international community has failed to do what it said it would do. Even if it honoured its commitments fully, it would have to recognise that needs have grown so much in recent months that its pledges would not be sufficient to meet them.

I had the opportunity to visit Syria less than two weeks ago. The objective of the visit was to assess our operational protocols and our security position and to visit the local staff. All our staff in Syria are nationals of that country. Many of them have been very badly affected in that they have lost loved ones, property or their livelihood. They conveyed to me the urgency of the situation and pleaded with me to advocate here and wherever I could find a forum for a greater sense of urgency, more attention and intolerance for the inertia that has characterised the response to the conflict over the past few months.