Noel Grealish (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The sum of €707 million is a lot of money but I welcome the increase of €26 million, especially when one goes abroad, particularly on the most recent visit to Malawi and Mozambique, and one sees the programmes in place to help the most vulnerable people in the world. I compliment our staff out there. I would like to see a lot more co-operation between nations to get better value for the money. This was evident in the Mozambique education programme administrated by the Irish office there. They have said that if they had more staff, they could do a lot more. They led the education programme in that country and I compliment the staff on that.

I have highlighted previously, and the Tánaiste has spoken about, the occupied Palestinian territories and the cut the United States of America has brought in. The Tánaiste has said an extra €5 million is allocated towards the occupied Palestinian territories. I welcome this. The world should come around to supporting the Palestinian people and putting extreme pressure on the United States of America to continue providing the aid towards that.

The briefing document on Irish Aid lists all the money allocated to various countries. In addition, €10 million has been allocated to the south-east Asia region programme, mainly in favour of Vietnam. Perhaps the Minister of State will outline why we are giving them €10 million and what programmes Ireland is promoting in Vietnam.