Ms Suzanne Keatinge:

Good morning, I am from Dóchas. Like Mr. Clarken, I welcome the opportunity to meet with the committee today. That this is the first meeting of the newly formed committee and it has chosen to hold this hearing prior to going into recess for the summer shows the importance and urgency of the migration issue for the committee, for which I am grateful. By way of introduction, I am new to Dóchas. As I have been in my role for only four months, I fear committee members may know more about Dóchas than I do. Hopefully, this is the start of a journey and I will get the opportunity to address this committee on many occasions on important issues and I will get to know each of the committee members individually.

Dóchas is an umbrella organisation of more than 60 non-governmental organisations which acts as a forum for consultation and a common voice among its members in terms of engagement with Oireachtas committees and the Government on issues of development. Crucially, our members work overseas as a company by recognition of the importance of Irish Government policy at home in shaping our shared global future.

That role is particularly appropriate for this issue of migration in that what we do in Ireland will be seen and watched by others. As Mr. Clarken has said, it is our time to really show that leadership role and put our rights-based principles at the centre of our decision-making and policy.

I will not go more into the details because Mr. Clarken has well outlined the problem and the big issues. It is interesting that the summit will be held one year after we all woke to the horrific image of the young three-year old boy, Aylan Kurdi, washed up on a beach in Turkey on 15 September 2015. I do not if it was the same for the committee but it was one of those moments for me personally where I went through all the emotions of shock and horror and a sense of powerlessness and shame. Luckily for me, and possibly for my family, I have settled more on the emotion for urgency, and that this is not about business as usual. We knew this was not a once-off and know these family stories happen every day.

Earlier this week, I spoke to Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF. One of its colleagues has just come back from a month on the high seas, having worked on one of its rescue missions. It is a shame he was unable to come here today but maybe there will be another opportunity for him to do so. I was reminded of a recent report by MSF that claimed 2,800 people have already died this year making a perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea. That is 1,000 more people than this time last year, which shows this problem is not going away. It is relevant that President Michael D. Higgins has on many occasions, but in particular for the world humanitarian summit, consistently said that this era of increased globalisation and migration is one of the greatest issues of the next decade.

I will now turn to what we can do and are doing. It is important first to say that for Dóchas members, and for those with whom we work in developing countries, migration from towns to cities across borders is a coping mechanism. It is important also to remind ourselves that the vast majority of refugees continue to be hosted by developing countries, particularly those that are in closest to the refugees' countries of origin. I was reminded of the following by Mr. John Ging when he recently addressed an Irish seminar on the World Humanitarian Summit. He said that the word "refugees" is a strange word because it conveys a sense of mobility. On average, we know that refugees spend 17 years in camps. I know that many members of this committee who have worked in Palestine will know that refugees in the Middle East stay in camps a lot longer than 17 years.

For Dóchas members, we have heard that Oxfam is doing a lot of work, as are many others such as ActionAid, Christian Aid, Concern, GOAL, Trócaire, World Vision Ireland and the Irish Red Cross. Many of their representatives are here today in the Gallery. Our members work in the crisis context and where conflicts are happening that force people to go on the move throughout Africa, Asia and the Middle East. They also support the efforts of neighbouring countries to deal with the large numbers of refugees in places like Jordan, Turkey, Kenya, Tanzania and many others. Equally important, they are now beginning to work much more in Europe and Ireland alongside many of the domestic agencies that do great work on issues around resettlement and relocation through a coalition of both domestic and international NGOs.

Regarding the high level meeting that will take place on 19 September, today's meeting is an opportunity to say that Ireland will play an important leadership role at the summit. The Chairman has already mentioned the important role played by Mr. David Donoghue. Yet again he is there and has been asked to co-chair the meeting with Jordan. It is testament to global perception that Ireland maintains its neutral and progressive foreign policy. It is also testament to his work in that he has a gift for getting tough negotiations over the line, as he did so well with the signing of the sustainable development goals this time last year.

I will outline the key moments or events before that summit and, indeed, afterwards. The deadline for this current phase of negotiations is tomorrow. We hope for and expect a political declaration, which will be known officially as the political declaration to address large movements of refugees and migrants. We are watching and waiting for that. Certainly, for civil society, we will examine it to see if it is as rights based and progressive as we have been seeking. Also, we are expecting an agreement on the development of the comprehensive refugee response framework. Our understanding is that it is beginning to discuss how we are going to do this. Remember, adherence to our obligations and monitoring them is as important as the political commitments themselves. Finally, we hope there will be a roadmap, at least, to develop a similar compact or response framework for the safe, orderly and regular movement of migrants. We realise this is a complex issue and that multiple layers must be examined so we do not expect that to be concluded until 2018.

It is important to note that there have been intense negotiations over the past two months, led by David Donoghue, but this is just the beginning of the process. We must keep engaged, and keep the committee up to date and engaged, on this longer journey. We hope that by the September summit there will be a strong political will and commitment to sign the political declaration, which will at least give us a framework to equip us better to support countries of origin and receiving countries to uphold rights around the protection of refugees.

Turning to what we will be calling on the committee to do, it is most important to ensure that the Irish Government lives up to its responsibility. Specifically, we ask the committee to write to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Charles Flanagan, to ask that Ireland prioritise five key issues both in the preparations for the meeting and also in the outcomes of that meeting. The first is to ensure that the political declaration reflects a clear commitment to prioritising international legal obligations and, as Jim Clarken outlined, the essential obligation in the 1951 convention and the 1967 protocol on the status of refugees.

Second, we must ensure that funding to tackle the refugee crisis is additional to, and not contained within, the existing commitment to overseas development assistance, ODA. We can be very proud of Ireland's record on this to date in that it has not counted its commitments to taking refugees within its ODA calculations. Unfortunately, that position is not shared by many other European countries. We also commend Irish Aid on continuing to see its ODA as a vital tool to fight poverty and inequality in least developed countries, as clearly outlined in its "One World, One Future" policy. It is critical that we not only seek to provide new additional resources, such as supporting the life saving naval support in the Mediterranean, but also ensure that this does not compromise or eat into existing commitments on ODA spending. We will look to Ireland to influence others, particularly the European Union, to follow suit. There have been worrying signs that this is not the case. We must stop placing conditions, particularly migration control indicators, on the allocation of development or humanitarian aid funding. We have been looking at some of the EU trust funds in west Africa and the conditions being placed on support to people in need, which is setting a dangerous precedent.

Third, we ask that Ireland is represented at this meeting at the highest level by the Taoiseach. That will signal a clear political commitment that we see this as an urgent and important issue. Fourth, it is about ensuring that civil society is an integral partner in the preparation and implementation of the outcomes of this meeting. We would be concerned that while there has been civil society consultation, in Ireland it has not been so forthcoming in terms of continual and systematic consultation with us.

We have also been asking that there is civil society representation on the official delegation to the summit. We are clear that this representation has to extend further, to the people who are themselves affected. We have to listen and take account of the voices of the affected populations, of the migrants and refugees themselves. Ultimately, we need to respect their agency, but they also have to be at the centre of decision-making.

My last point relates to Ireland's already strong commitment and leadership in relation to gender. I do not know why this topic is always last, but it is certainly not least. We ask Ireland to seek, in particular, that the outcomes from the high-level meeting reflect a strong commitment to protecting and empowering women and girls affected by migration. We already have a strong national action plan that includes those commitments to protecting and empowering children and we very much welcome that this is included in the programme for partnership Government. However, it must continue to be a central theme. We have to ensure, in particular, that protection of women and girls is central to policy-making. Our members are doing a great deal of specific work there. There are practical solutions and there is detailed evidence of the effect of migration on women and girls, so let us hear that and use it, so that we have strong policy-making around gender equality.

Those are the five key requests in the run-up to the summit, but we need to ensure that we continue to see those after the summer and in the recommendations over the next few years. It is appropriate to end with a quote from President Michael D. Higgins, who, as many members know, has been a champion of so many of these issues and, more important, a champion of the values we have been talking about today. At the recent World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, as well as at the Dóchas annual conference today, he spoke about the need for us to move from rhetoric to action. More specifically, he said "[f]or too long, empty pledges and fine words have died in our mouths - now is the time to turn promises into action for this generation".