Mr. Dominic MacSorley:

Did I draw the short straw, coming third? I saw the RTÉ three-part documentary "The Thin Green Line", which is a contemporary story of the work of the Irish Government in its overseas embassies. I hope all present saw it. It is a really important statement of a nation that is operating at a global level and it gave an insight into Ireland's work and its significant influence abroad. It really gave an insight into the work that Ireland is doing in New York, Paris, Geneva and Sierra Leone and the huge influence it is having. That work needs to continue and needs to be reinforced.

As other speakers have mentioned, this is emerging from a tradition in which Ireland and its people have identified socially, politically and economically with the world's poorest. That is something we can never be complacent about. It is our responsibility to ensure that this heritage, which does not exist to the same extent in many other countries, is retained through the next generation. Irish Aid is at an important juncture. I think it is an extraordinary recognition that Ireland's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, David Donoghue, who I think will come before the committee, was given the role to co-faciltate this historic agreement. The sustainable development goals are not just promises. They cannot just be promises. If one analyses them, there are in fact rights. They are rights to food, shelter, education, health and protection. We have to frame them. There is a reason they are called promises, in the context of getting 193 nations to subscribe to them. Internally, however, we can start to see those promises as rights and it will move from aspiration to obligation because that is the challenge that lies ahead.

One World, One Future is a great document. It is a great aspiration. It has nearly all the things in it that should be in there. It was conceived before the sustainable development goals, SDGs, before the world humanitarian summit, before Brexit and before we faced a year in which 20 million people are facing potential starvation. This is unprecedented. The attention span of the global media is challenged by a consumption of irrelevant commentary from a President who tweets, as well as being consumed by the frequency of crises, but they are not coming back, are not analysing and are not pointing the finger as to how we can tackle these issues. The goals are big, bold and ambitious. The price tag is estimated to be around €3 trillion. At the high level conference, Professor Jeffrey Sachs was given the floor and he challenged people, the corporations and the private sector on the role they have to play. The sustainable development goals will not be achieved simply by the work of the NGOs, the donors and the public. The private sector has a critical role. At the World Economic Forum, the discussion was about the role of the private sector and enterprises that combine profits with purpose. We have good examples among the NGO community within Irish business, that is, in the Kerry Group and Accenture, where these companies contribute significantly. These are positive examples, whether it is through the agriculture sector or health, in which Irish Aid, Irish NGOs, Irish private sector and the Irish public are in a partnership in a place like Niger or in Zambia. In Concern's case, this is transforming - through climate-smart agriculture - the productivity of 100,000 farmers, most of them women who are now progressing from being unable to feed their families to becoming small business enterprises and sending their children to school. It is not just about enough food but about the right food and nutrition. These are amazing examples of success in a world that really needs to have them.

Aid has to stay untied and be principled. We all work with multiple donors. The shift of emphasis that is happening with some other donors is disturbing. We are not seeing that with Irish Aid and we need to retain that. We need to stay focused on resilience building and prevention of hunger. We need to establish targets within a national action plan. We believe that Irish Aid has a key role to play in what has to be a whole-of-Government approach as a key driver. At European level, Ireland has an even bigger opportunity and a greater obligation now to have a principled voice, as well as a leadership role it can and should have in the delivery of principled poverty-focused aid.

We should stay focused on poverty. It is easy to say that Ireland has a focus on poverty but it is not just a slogan as it involves tough decisions about prioritisation and going into countries that face significant challenges. There are major challenges in terms of security and corruption and we must focus on what we can and are doing within that. With the quality of the work that Irish Aid is funding with organisations, we are doing work that is not simply about welfare, it is about using different models to transform the lives of people. It is having a much greater impact. I think the responsibility for us is that we need to capture these stories because we have to go back to the public and talk about the impact and how we manage to bring about these levels of transformation within these challenging contexts. Our commitment is that we will stay true to our mission, that is, working with those in greatest need. We will continue to subscribe to the highest standards of accountability, organisational transparency and efficiency that we have worked hard to achieve. That level of transparency and accountability is of paramount importance right now because the scale of human suffering is of truly unprecedented proportions. We need the full confidence and support of the donors, the public in particular, as we go forward. We will continue to be a gateway for the Irish public and Irish businesses. We will continue to work hard through various coalitions to ensure the messages are getting out.

Ireland will report next year in New York. We have a good story to tell and we will have a huge opportunity. The range of reports from countries have varied significantly. Some of them were quite poor, some of them were very defensive and some of them were exceptional. We have an opportunity, because we have a great story, to come back in and give exceptional leadership. I will give one example. Ireland provides five-year funding in the Central African Republic. It is a country we do not hear much about because it is largely forgotten and it is not of strategic interest. Ireland is the only donor providing that level of funding in order that programmes can be designed on a longer-term basis among communities in extraordinary flux. Other NGOs are jealous and other donors are nervous because it is a level of leadership in a country that is unparalleled.

There is an opportunity for Irish Aid to review its partnership countries and boldly go into more of these countries, such as the Central African Republic, and add in the diplomacy for which we are known and the challenges about tackling conflict. António Guterres has the potential to be a great Secretary General. He has challenged all of us to tackle the issues that create poverty. In particular, he has spoken about assertive diplomacy in a world that is increasingly using militarisation to further its needs. Ireland, in its agenda - which is the right agenda - to be on the Security Council, has a role to dig back in as a country that has overcome conflict, hunger and poverty to focus on these three key areas going forward, because we will not be able to embrace all of the sustainable development goals equally. Let us stick to what the nation knows about, which is those three key areas, and we will prove to have a leadership role.

I was in classrooms a couple of days ago. We always like to quote various people so I slightly paraphrased George Bernard Shaw when I stated the essence of inhumanity is not hatred but indifference. In a world where we see political indifference from other countries we have the opportunity to be a greater shining light. If we fail to act on the suffering of others we not only deny their humanity but we erode our own. This is an opportunity for us to strengthen that even further.