Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Gaffey for his presentation and welcome his colleagues to the committee. He quite rightly stated that the Addis Ababa outcome needs to be ambitious. The key understanding of that conference will be agreement on how to mobilise the resources necessary to deliver the SDGs. The resolution of the UN General Assembly which established the conference indicated that representation at Addis Ababa would be at the highest political level, including Heads of State and Government, along with foreign affairs and finance Ministers.

I understand from the previous presentation that the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Sean Sherlock, will attend the Addis Ababa conference, but will any of his Government colleagues be attending? Mr. Gaffey referred to the European recommitment to reaching the aid target of 0.7% of gross national income. That is welcome, but will Ireland outlining a roadmap at the Addis Ababa conference on how it intends to achieve that target? Emphasis has been placed on the need to leverage private investment to complement public financing. Is that what Mr. Gaffey means when he refers to unlocking finance from other sources? Is this from State sources or from other countries whose contribution to ODA has been very poor, or is it to be from a combination of State and private sources?

Policy coherence in development was one of the few areas highlighted as needing improvement in Ireland's 2014 OECD peer review. We touched on this when discussing the departmental Estimates at an earlier meeting. How much has Irish Aid engaged with the Department on issues of shared concern such as taxation, financial flows and debt, which affect human rights and development goals? How much discussion has taken place between both Departments on these very important issues? Mr. Gaffey also referred to the One World, One Future strategy which was published in May 2013. This committed to a biennial report on Ireland's progress on policy development which would be prepared specifically for this committee for consideration. Are there proposals to bring such a report to this committee before the autumn to reach the deadline for the biennial report as set out in the strategy?