Mr. Kevin Kelly:

I thank the members for their many very important and relevant questions, and I hope I can do justice to them. Senator Walsh asked about disaster risk reduction and whether it is a feature of disaster prone countries. It is increasingly a feature of such countries, which are prone to these kinds of cyclical natural disasters. Just last night I was listening to the President of the Philippines who said there are typhoons every year and the country suffered an earthquake not so long ago. That is why countries like the Philippines have disaster risk reduction management councils and elaborate co-ordination structures in place.

Irish Aid has also prioritised this area and not just at a policy level, where we have been promoting the concept of resilience, which is almost the opposite of fragility. We are trying to build longer term resilience of countries such as this that would be prone to these kinds of disasters, which is why we have supported, in a number of countries that we are engaged in, local authorities and governments in building capacity for disaster risk reduction. During our EU Presidency this was a major theme, and we helped to shepherd through some Council conclusions in the resilience area. It is very important to say that although it is a calamitous loss of life in the Philippines, the very prompt and pre-emptive action of the Filipino Government in evacuating thousands of people did greatly reduce the number of deaths.

There is a very illustrative example if one considers the impact of the earthquake that hit Haiti and the earthquake of similar ferocity that hit Chile; there were vast differences in the consequences and impact of those earthquakes because Chile had put in place elaborate systems around disaster risk reduction and management, whereas Haiti - which is a much poorer and less developed country - did not have those systems in place. Disaster risk reduction is a very important aspect of what we do.

The points have been well made about Syria and the crisis in the Philippines emphasises the need to come to a political solution. Syria is very much a man-made conflict and crisis but the scenario in the Philippines is of a very different variety. As I indicated earlier, real challenges have been posed. Some very welcome comments were made about the scale of our response, and members have welcomed the speed with which we reacted while legitimately questioning the amount of support. This year we have allocated over €11 million to Syria, as there is significant need in that part of the world as well. We have a finite set of resources at our disposal, and very often we are in a difficult position in trying to juggle those competing priorities. I fully agree that this emphasises the need to resolve that crisis.

On the question of whether the UN should be giving more, I should clarify that my statement referred specifically to the €25 million from the UN central emergency response fund released by Baroness Valerie Amos. This is a fund to which Ireland is a contributor but it is just one element of the UN's response. It is a pooled funding mechanism that donors such as Ireland can quickly use to bring resources to the ready for distribution stage. It does not represent the totality of the UN response, and a number of other UN agencies have issued separate appeals, such as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UNICEF and many other agencies that will allocate resources. It is important to make the point that the UN only has the sum of its member state contributions, and contributions made on a voluntary basis have also been affected by the global economic crisis. I am sure talk of the need for additional resources would be music to the ears of UN agencies.

Deputy Neville asked about what other countries are giving and if we are happy with the level of effort. Currently, we rank quite favourably and the Deputy is correct in that the resources we are likely to allocate in the coming days will be in the region of €2 million or $2.6 million. The United States has allocated an initial amount of $20 million and the UK has made an allocation of £10 million. Japan and Australia have contributed $10 million each and Canada has contributed €10 million. The European Union made an initial allocation from emergency resources of $4 million and it has indicated that $40 million is foreseen down the line from development funding. We are still very much in the early stages of identifying the needs of the crisis, and some of my colleagues have attended meetings in New York, Geneva and Brussels. There is a great deal of energy around trying to gather the momentum and as many resources as can be made available.

Deputy Neville also asked about oversight mechanisms for the aid at our disposal, which is a very legitimate query. We do not have an embassy in the area, and although we have diplomatic relations with the Philippines, our embassy is through Singapore. There is an excellent honorary consulate service to support Irish citizens in distress in the Philippines but we do not have an Irish Aid office or mechanisms. On the humanitarian side we are working through reputable UN agencies, subject to audit, accountability and strict co-ordination mechanisms that we have audited in the past and which we will be able to monitor in the future.

With regard to non-governmental organisation, NGO, funding that will be made available, this will be done through a set of reputable NGOs that we are confident has a solid track record of engagement in humanitarian interventions such as this. Many of them already have previous or current presence on the ground in the Philippines, and through the accountability mechanisms we put in place through documentation, we will consider the possibility of field monitoring and ensuring we have the best possible value. We must see that there is effectiveness in the response.

Deputy Smith asked about EU funding, which I have mentioned, and queried whether the aid is tied or untied. Humanitarian aid is seen as separate, and just as much as we maintain a distinction between programme development aid from Irish Aid, which is long-term in nature and programmed in a different way, humanitarian aid is very much driven by the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence. Humanitarian aid would be delivered in grant form and in an untied manner.

Deputy Smith also asked why there was confusion about the number of deaths, and we have also asked that question. Very often there are wildly varying estimates of numbers. We have all seen the news coverage of the Philippines crisis and many areas have not yet been accessed and information has not yet come from many municipalities. Roads remain impassable and we have not even been able to get telecommunication links with certain areas. The President of the Philippines has put the variance down to emotional officials providing very high numbers.

I am not sure on what basis those initial figures of 10,000 people were presented by the media, but the current official estimate we have from the Philippines is approximately 2,500. Unfortunately and sadly, however, I expect that figure will rise.

I was also asked if I have an estimate of what funding will be available from the Irish public. The answer is "No" but, as we are all aware, the Irish public is notable for the generosity it shows at times of crisis. Even when times are tough at home, Irish people are known to be the world's most generous donors on an individual basis. I am not referring to government aid, but donations from people's pockets. We expect that the Irish public will probably respond to this with its usual generosity. We, representing government aid, will of course wish to keep an eye on that and ensure that, in the context of the resources we have at our disposal, the Government is also responding in a similar way.

I will finish on the issue of the stocks, in response to the question asked by Senator Mullins. However, the Vice Chairman asked about co-ordination and if we had learned any lessons regarding co-ordination and why the response always seems to be so slow and chaotic. We have all seen the dreadful images of looting, chaos and desperate people, and we heard some very disturbing reports of eight people being killed in a stampede into a warehouse last night. It always looks as if it is a very chaotic response. The United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination, UNDAC, team leader in the Philippines in a media interview yesterday described it as chaos, but organised chaos. In fact, there is a very elaborate system for co-ordination. Lessons have been learned from the experiences of Haiti and the tsunami. There is an elaborate system in place. Valerie Amos, who has visited Ireland and whom the committee has met in the past, pulls rank as the senior UN person. She comes into a country such as that and the UN humanitarian co-ordination system kicks into action. There are nine thematic clusters for co-ordination at both the field and global levels, and each field level cluster is led by a UN agency. I will not go through them all but, for illustrative purposes, UNICEF leads a nutrition cluster, the World Health Organisation, WHO, leads a health cluster and emergency shelter is led by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Systems kick into action and the UN organisations we support fall in line with those systems of co-ordination. Every attempt is made to ensure there is a co-ordinated response.

Of course, this is typhoon season and one can anticipate that there will be typhoons at this time of year. However, I have outlined the reasons for how stretched the humanitarian system is. That is not just NGOs and bilateral donors such as Ireland, but also UN agencies. It is very difficult to have all of the resources at the ready for when something such as this happens. Unfortunately, that is the case. However, even in respect of Ireland's small contribution and the team I am leading within the Department, just yesterday - the Vice Chairman asked a very pertinent question - our evaluation and audit unit shared a document with me which contained evaluations of previous responses to Haiti and the tsunami, with six or seven lessons that I should bear in mind as I co-ordinate the response to the Philippines. Therefore, there is an effort in Ireland and internationally to learn from previous experience.

I have spoken at length so I will conclude on the issue of stocks. The question was about how that works and how it happens that we have tents, tarpaulins, ropes and such equipment at our disposal. Basically, this is through Ireland's rapid response initiative. The rapid response initiative was established in 2007 by the Government. It involves having a roster of skilled experts at the ready, as well as stocks. We have stocks such as those mentioned by the Senator in different depots throughout the world. There are five depots - in Subang, Malaysia; Panama; Dubai; Accra and Brindisi in Italy. These stocks are located at very strategic points around the globe so they can be readily made available to respond.

In fact, we were in something of a bind for the current crisis at the weekend because we had just utilised all of the stocks Ireland had ready in Subang, Malaysia, which is closest to respond to the Philippines, because we had responded less than a month earlier to the terrible events in Bohol in the Philippines. In a situation such as that, the partnerships we have mean we were able to borrow the stocks of other donors and fly goods from Dubai. Our stocks from Dubai will be the first airlift supplies to arrive. We faced problems over the weekend securing the right aircraft that could land in these very difficult circumstances, but I am happy to report that, at 4 p.m. today, our airplane from Dubai should have just touched down in Manila. It should have landed this morning but it was delayed. By 7 p.m. Irish time it will touch down in Sebu, in the Philippines. That will be the first of such airlifts. We will plan to do more because even if our budget gets depleted towards the end of this year, happily we have additional stocks on hand to deploy for this crisis, if necessary.