Mr. Dominic MacSorley:

That is an excellent range of questions. I will address a number of them and pass others to my colleagues. I will come back to the multilateral issue, which has come up a number of times. The UN is a very flawed system and even the UN agencies themselves are beset by bureaucracy. We went through a transformative agenda under Valerie Amos, and when we finally came out of it, it had improved levels of coherence and co-ordination at country level. NGOs are now permanent on the humanitarian country teams, which are the co-ordinating bodies in Juba in South Sudan and Nairobi in Kenya.

Ireland and the NGOs do not operate in isolation. We operate in co-operation with others. If we want to influence the UN, we must pay into it. That is the reality. In many cases it is doing extremely strong work with restricted resources. That being said, it comes down to simple issues and we are now tracking the efficiency and speed with which funds get dispersed. In Somalia, Irish Aid and others will simply contribute to an emergency pooled fund which will get divided out, because contractually it is easier than writing a cheque for four different agencies.

Our experience of documenting the progress of this is it took us nine months to register and get formal acceptance within the UN system before we could even access these funds. This comes down to bureaucracy and not having the right systems. From our side, the committee can be assured we will track this and come back and state it is not working at optimum level and achieving what it should. Let us improve it rather than cut it and let us also ensure we continue to expand the remit of NGOs.

The point on politicians and champions is key. We really welcome the fact politicians will travel over and come back and become champions. Beyond this, I will pick up on what Mr. Meehan said on the development education programme.

The Irish Aid programme, for example, is funding the schools debate programmes right across the country. Last year was the first year it was an all-Ireland process and a Northern Ireland school won. Northern Ireland had not been part of that for almost 30 years and at that time parents were uncomfortable about their children travelling across the Border. As part of this process, the winning team will go to Ethiopia or Tanzania and they are extraordinary ambassadors not just now for their own peers, but for life. It changes them and they start to read newspapers and pick up these issues. They are interested and get into politics. This cannot be underestimated. Sometimes the development education programmes seem to be the easy ones to cut but they are not. They are critical and facilitate connections. In some ways, building connections between Irish civil society, such as the rape crisis group working in Kosovo or Teagasc working in other areas, adds value.

The burden of refugees across the globe has been mentioned and the Rohingya is a very good example. Bangladesh is half the size of Ireland but it has a population of 162 million. It is already hosting 400,000 Rohingya and now there are 500,000 on top of that. Over a period but most recently, they have taken in close to 1 million refugees, which is the same as Germany. The challenge is that natural disasters resonate with the public and donors in terms of response but conflict disasters do not. When we tracked how long it took to raise €1 million, it took 24 hours after the Haiti earthquake and nine days after the Nepal event. It has taken us 90 days to raise €1 million for the Horn of Africa food security crisis because much of it is conflict-driven. Through the most recent Disasters Emergency Committee, DEC, appeal in the UK, the Rohingya crisis has only raised £7 million. If we are going to work in these areas, we must formulate plans to ensure donors and the public respond to these human crises. The price tag for the people at the end of it is no different, whether it is an earthquake or other crisis.