Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is probably in their best interests to have the highest level of delegation in their own countries.

I thank the three witnesses for attending. This matter shall not go away and we are not going away. Next week the director general of Irish Aid and his officials will be in attendance and we will discuss this subject.

The Irish UN representative is David Donoghue and we congratulate him on his new role. In preparation for the Addis Ababa conference he will join us on 9 July and we expect to have him in here on the previous Thursday. I congratulate him and his Kenyan counterpart on the work that they have done to co-facilitate the final phase of the negotiations post-2015.

I wish to acknowledge the presence of the Ambassador of Ethiopia, Mrs. Lela-alem Gebreyohannes Tedla. We can all remember the terrible famine that struck Ethiopia in the 1980s and we can see how it has been transformed. It is now a wonderful country which is growing all of the time. Ethiopia is an example to other African countries. Let us hope that what happens in Addis Ababa lays the foundation for a more productive Africa and that the continent benefits and eliminates the challenges posed by poverty, hunger, disease, conflict and climate change. The latter is a big part of what is happening in the region.

I thank the witnesses for coming here this morning. I assure them that we will work closely with them over the next six months or so.