Mr. Peter Power:

There were no helicopters, or none of the ones the Deputy spoke about. He is correct that when the helicopters arrived from the USS Washington, the effort kicked in in a major way because they were able to get aid to outlying areas. The reason everybody talks about Tacloban is that the CNNs, the Skys and the RTEs of this world were able to get there and tell the story. However, there is a multiple of other areas, including Tanauan, which I mentioned, and the Visayas area, which have been levelled but there are no cameras there. The helicopters are there dealing with this.

The Deputy asked about capacity. The local capacity was not very strong in any event to deal with a disaster of this nature. We had 70 people in the Philippines beforehand and not all were in this area but we got them in fairly quickly. No response will ever be as quick as it should be when children do not have water, which they did not have for a long period of time. The global community is doing its very best in exceptionally difficult circumstances. It is only my opinion but it is hard to see how aid could have got in and have been distributed more quickly than was done. The fact is a phenomenal natural event happened and it takes time to get aid in and to distribute it.