Ms Louise Finan:

On that question from Senator Lawless, we have seen Ireland and Irish Aid, in particular, over the last year become much stronger in the development of new relationships. Currently, Ireland chairs what is called the Nordic Plus donor group. It is a really interesting group of like-minded countries and Ireland's leadership in chairing that, and specifically Irish Aid's leadership in chairing that, shows that when Ireland puts its mind to it, it really can form very strong influential relationships that drive agendas. While it might be diplomatically quite hard to navigate what is happening in the US, Ireland is stepping up into that leadership role with other countries, and as other speakers have said, becoming an influential voice at EU level within those donor countries to mitigate the worst effects of what one cannot stop. That is what we would like to see more of and we would commend Irish Aid for that.