Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Power. I was at a meeting with a Palestinian representative which delayed me getting here, so I apologise to him. Like others said, we followed his report on television. It was very effective in that it really brought home the scale of the devastation. Fair dues to Mr. Power and RTE for covering that. Powerful images are helpful in order to get the support.

I also commend Mr. Power on the work he is doing, in particular for children. Even in this country, many organisations have children as their main focus of attention and support but, when push comes to shove, many of them prove to be quite deficient in that area. I will refrain from naming them but I commend Mr. Power and his organisation on the work they are doing.

I refer to distributing aid across such an area, in particular that archipelago which is a most difficult area. Are there many areas which have not as yet had support from the aid programme? In some of the programmes I watched, people were coming to the end, from the point of view of hunger, when some of the aid arrived. Perhaps Mr. Power might like to comment a little on that. What does he think can be done, because obviously there will be rebuilding there which, I reckon, will take a considerable number of years?

I mention the prospect for children in that kind of environment. I was really alarmed that Mr. Power reckoned that more than 40% of the children there have been displaced, which is a very significant issue.

I move on to the funding issue. Mr. Power made the point that UNICEF has increased its funding target to $61.5 million, that it only has half of that and there is a still a funding gap of approximately $30 million. It comes back to a conversation we had last week with officials from the Department, who told us what they were doing. At that stage, if I remember correctly, approximately, €1.2 million was being given. I thought that was very insignificant in the context of what the requirement was. If one takes our Department of Health, the overall cost it estimated was $300 million. I would say that is wasted in the Department of Health every two to three months.

The UN only contributed $25 million. It seemed people were not stepping up as urgently as I thought they would but Mr. Power is in a much better position to judge that than I am. I think in his reply to Deputy Neville he said he felt the international community has responded reasonably expeditiously. Will he elaborate on that?

Does Mr. Power have any estimate of the overall aid programme required to restore the life of those people to one to which we would aspire as a basic standard of existence? Is the $300 million an under-estimate?

I was one of the members of the committee who visited the Za'atari refugee camp in June.

The camps appear to be reasonably well laid out. Some of the people are in tents and others are in Portakabins but when I see what happened in the Philippines, the situations are worlds apart in many ways. It struck me that there are 120,000 people but the Minister of State, Deputy Joe Costello, told us at a previous meetings that when he was there in January it was only 15,000 people. Does Mr. Power want to comment on the numbers that are there now?

The other question that arose when we visited was the application of law and order. There was no law and order within the camp itself and no forces other than what the refugees themselves generated. Regarding the position of women, which has been covered already, they told us there were brothels operating and some women were being coerced into prostitution within the camps.

On the issue of children mentioned by the witnesses, 2.26 million children were out of school. What is being done to target the area of education because an entire generation is being exposed to being radicalised? It would appear to be in the international community's interest to ensure that this area is not left for exploitation by others with ill-intent.

I commend the witnesses on their novel project with the students of Newpark school in Blackrock. It is a very good idea to get them interlinked. It is a great initiative and I commend Ms White.