David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman. I welcome the Minister of State. I begin by commending the work of people in his section, both at home and abroad. When I was at the Department of Justice, we spent a certain amount of time in the UN in New York, Geneva and other places. As the Chairman knows well, we spent our time there lobbying for a place on the UN Security Council, which we got in the end. During that time we met with many colleagues and the respect in which Ireland is held by those other countries is just enormous. It was amazing to see. Much of that is down to the work done by our ODA people abroad, the money we spend and the relationships we have. It is important to say that. It was tangible, it was warm and it was friendly and Ireland was highly respected. The Minister of State will get an opportunity when the travel restrictions are over to meet some of these people as well and I am sure he will agree with me.

I have just a few questions. On the climate unit and the money being spent on countering climate disruption, could the Minister of State give a few examples of how it is being spent in various parts of the world? I met people from some of the Pacific islands and they were worried about their islands being swamped by rising sea levels, for instance. As such, this is a real issue. There are some people out there who feel it has gone past the point of no return in this regard. The Minister of State might comment on that.

An issue has arisen which may not be in the Minister of State's remit but which he may wish to comment on anyway. Quite a number of Irish people are in places like Dubai and the Middle East generally as teachers and want to come home for the summer break. They have been vaccinated with a vaccine not approved by the European Medicines Agency, EMA, such as Sinopharm, which is the Chinese one, or the Russian one, or others. It appears there may be some difficulties in their coming back, if they do so. Will the Minister of State comment on that situation because the time when these people will be coming home is coming up very soon? People have been in contact with myself and others about that.

I noticed another issue in appendix 2 of the documentation we were given. There is an item called "Other Channels" at 16% and €1.42 million. The Minister of State may not have the details to hand now but he might make available to us at some stage a breakdown of that considerable amount of money. A number of years ago there was a discussion about in-donor refugee costs, meaning some of the ODA money was being spent here in the country on refugees and asylum seekers. I am not sure if that is still the case. The Minister of State might comment on that, or send us a note later if he is not in a position to do so now. To finish off, the work being done by our ODA people is amazing and the money is being spent in a very good way. I thank the Minister of State's officials for that.