Mr. Niall O'Keeffe:

On the final point with regard to support for humanitarian funding and donor fatigue, it is very clear that donor fatigue is taking place. Ten years of conflict, ten years of humanitarian crisis and ten years of the international community providing funding for humanitarian assistance for people in Syria is a very long time. What we have seen in recent years is a declining amount of humanitarian funding being provided and, on the other side, over the past year or 18 months we have really seen increasing amounts of humanitarian need. The situation is getting worse due to the economic decline, Covid, and the stalemate that exists throughout Syria and in the region for Syrian refugees.

The reality is that last year, the UN humanitarian appeal received only 56% of its funding, which is a shockingly poor result for a whole year that such a humanitarian fund would receive such a low amount of funding. This downward trend has been going on for a number of years. It is important to say that humanitarian funding is really just a sticking plaster. It will not resolve the situation. It will not find a political solution, rebuild Syria or do anything. All it does is ensure that people who are desperately in need of assistance today can receive that assistance. Unfortunately for those people, they do not know what will happen tomorrow or next week. Unfortunately, the humanitarian assistance is really just a sticking plaster for the situation.

What is needed is that at the donor conference that will take place in Brussels at the end of this month, the international community must step up and provide support in a way that is commensurate to the level of need in Syria. There also needs to be a matching political effort at international level to find a lasting solution to this. Last year, Ireland pledged €25 million to the crisis, which is fantastic. Ireland has been quite good in terms of providing humanitarian support to the UN system and to each of our organisations here, and for this we are very thankful, but the needs continue to be there.