Ms Suzanne Keatinge:

I will take Senator Bacik's question about the roadmap and whether we think this is realistic. It is important to say that the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Coveney, when he was introducing Irish Aid's recent annual report, said that we were not going to get much this year but that he was willing to commit to a dramatic increase after that. He went so far as to say that he supported the idea behind a roadmap. It is going to be very important for us to keep him to that. There are a couple of things I would like to stress in that regard. The reason we keep talking about a percentage is so that it allows that amount to go up and down depending on the economic growth situation. That is really important. The sustainable development goals may be aspirations but they also relate to rights and obligations. That 0.7% target is an international commitment that the Government has consistently signed up to.

I would like to reference what Mr. Meehan said earlier. We have seen the timeline shift. This was meant to be achieved after the millennium development goals in 2015. Then the date changed to about 2020 and then it shifted again to 2030. In our submission and in our press release after the budget, Dóchas said this needs to be achieved by 2025 if we are to achieve the ambition of the sustainable development goals.

There was a variety of questions and lots of specific ones, including one on disability inclusion. The issue of tax came up as did the issue of sexual and reproductive health. I do not think we are all experts on each of them. However, if there is an opportunity, we will make submissions to the committee on specific themes. Dóchas would be very open to doing that and to facilitating those kind of conversations.

I thank Ms Keatinge. I agree with everything Senator Bacik said about the importance of the multilateral system. It is increasingly important in today's world. There is no question about that. In the submission to this review by the Dóchas humanitarian working group, there was a very clear issue for that group about the very sudden shift in percentages for the Dóchas humanitarian group. The spend from Irish Aid went from 20% of ODA to 12%, with a very rapid scaling up on the multilateral side. I think its question refers that. Is there sufficient thought in that? Is there a very strong rationale for that? As the group suggested, perhaps a value for money assessment could be undertaken on that if that trend is to continue? We need a multilateral system, and we need it like we have never needed it before.