Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman. I shall follow on directly from the comments made by the Chairman and that of Deputy Brady about Ethiopia and Tigray. Obviously it is, as the Chairman quite rightly described in his remarks, a situation in which Ireland is very actively involved both from the UN side and our relationship with Ethiopia. It is an important country for us in terms of Irish Aid. Obviously, we very much welcome the situation where we now have some inspections on the ground from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission to investigate reported atrocities there. The key situation is to try to get a peaceful cessation of hostilities. We did put in emergency aid worth just over €3 million and we have an ongoing aid programme with Ethiopia. As the year progresses we will look at reviewing that. Very much our goals and efforts, particularly through our UN involvement in the Security Council, is to try to bring about a peaceful solution there.

Deputy Stanton mentioned a couple of things. Apologies, as this is the first time doing this and if I miss out on anything I will come back to it or attempt to come back to it. The Deputy is quite right in his comments about the high regard in which we are held by so many people in terms of the work done over the years by so many in Irish Aid and in terms of work on the ground, in particular. That represented itself in the response of people to the Covid pandemic outbreak right around the world both in terms of our missions, the staff on the ground and Irish NGOs. I refer to the cumulative response to immediately work, to adapt and do quick changes to work to mitigate the immediate impact of Covid in the areas in which they worked. The way we did that was a credit to them. They have worked in an incredible way over the past 18 months and a very large thanks is due to them for that.

One key thing about the climate unit is that a lot of the previous approach was about mitigation. What we are primarily looking at is adaption and making climate finance available for that. Deputy Stanton or another contributor quite rightly mentioned the small islands and the countries that are most affected. When we talk in the West about staving off the impacts of climate change, those small islands and countries will say the impacts are with them now and that it is not a solution down the road in five, ten or 15 years that is needed but immediate solutions to help them deal with rising tides and with the impacts, particularly severe weather that can have a devastating impact. We very much work in that space. In the area of climate finance, we are seeing a significant increase in our commitment, particularly in terms of moving the focus away from mitigation to adaptation and putting that in place.

Even simple things, such as working with village communities on putting in place a cooker burner system that stops wood being burned on an open fire, has a direct benefit for rural communities in Malawi and other places. There is a combination of mitigating climate impacts as well health impacts through direct immediate measures.

Deputy Stanton raised the question of vaccines. It is probably not directly in my area but I will comment on it because it is very much a diaspora related area. As the Deputy correctly mentioned, a large number of Irish people, in particular teachers, work in the United Arab Emirates and various parts of the Middle East. Usually they go out on a 12 month programme and return to Ireland around this time of year. We need to look at this situation. The Chinese vaccine is recognised by the World Health Organization as valid and this is the vaccine in overwhelming use in the Middle East. Therefore, Irish people will be returning fully vaccinated with a certificate of full vaccination. We need to think about broadening how we look at this, in terms of opening up aviation to allow for this vaccine to be taken into account. If I am correct, and if not I apologise, one of the quirks is that the US has not approved AstraZeneca as a vaccine and if it took the same approach as we are taking in Europe we could have all types of interesting scenarios. Globally we need to look at this and state when World Health Organization approved vaccines have been administered that people are fully vaccinated, and we should look at this as proof of vaccination.

Deputy Stanton is quite right that there is a figure on the development aid side in the Department of Justice. The figure has reduced this year. As the Deputy is well aware from his previous role, which he did so well, there was a first year cost on the refugee side of things in Ireland. I believe I have covered all of the questions.

To answer Deputy Brady, the key issue for me in terms of the roadmap to achieve the 0.7% target is, as I said in my opening remarks, to have a very stable and incremental approach. Unfortunately, we have seen other countries that moved very quickly to 0.7% and had to pull back from it. The direct impact of a country pulling back from it on millions of people's lives is even worse. The main focus of what I want to do through the budgetary process in the coming years is to negotiate a steady and sustained path so that when we reach the 0.7% level we want to reach, not only will we have buy-in on the political side of things but also from society and the country at large and, therefore, that we have a ring-fence around it that makes it a stable amount and we do not end up in the situation we have, unfortunately, seen in other nearby parts of the world, where there was 0.7% and then there was a reduction, which had quite severe impacts.

I join Deputy Brady in his condemnation. It is awful when we see aid projects funded either by Irish Aid or the European Union targeted or destroyed as part of any hostilities or situation developing. Structures are in place to enable compensation to be sought and this should be done. Even if something is going to become a target or eventually gets damaged because of a situation, it is still imperative that we are there putting in place the aid in the first place and making a contribution. As has the Deputy, I have seen some very upsetting pictures of a destroyed building, school or institution that was doing so much good on the ground for a community and is now lying in ruins. What is key is to make the contribution in the first place, and if we have to go back and do it again we will have to be continuous in our support to make sure we do so.

I addressed Ethiopia at the beginning. The Deputy spoke about vaccines and access to vaccines. I always speak about two matters with regard to vaccines and they are very important. It is vital that we have as much equality of access to vaccine as possible. COVAX is really helping to deliver this. Very much from the conversations I have had, it is important to ensure we have the funding in place. This is something of which Ireland can be particularly proud because an area of development aid in which we are particularly strong is health systems to deliver the vaccines. There is absolutely no point in flooding a country with vaccines unless we have enabled it to have in place the health system to deliver them. We have a commitment of more than €100 million in 2021 on global health. This is all about what we have learnt over the years in our experience of dealing with Gavi and other institutions and organisations in this area. To make sure it works not only do we have to ensure the vaccines are there but also make sure the healthcare professionals are there and the right structures and facilities are in place, as are the right PPE and all of the things necessary in the background to enable a health system to work in order to get vaccine delivery. This is something on which we have been very strong. COVAX is ramping up at this stage and we are beginning to see increased access.

As the Chair mentioned, intellectual property falls very much within another Department's area. We as a country are open to looking at how we can work co-operatively together with all other countries. We acknowledge what President Biden has said. We acknowledge the comments of the European Commission in this regard. While all of this is important, it is a long-term process and it will enable many discussions to take place in many institutions over months. What COVAX is doing is putting vaccines on the ground now. This is why we have put €3 million into it, to make sure there is an immediate flow of vaccines. Yes, more needs to be done and I hope we will see very quickly a substantial increase in what COVAX is doing. It is a very positive way of delivering.

Deputy Brady mentioned Yemen. Obviously, the situation in Yemen is a horror story that has fallen off the world's headlines and in many ways has not received attention. Consistently what we will find through the work of Ireland, and the work of the Minister, Deputy Coveney, on the Security Council, is that we have a tradition as a country of prioritising conflict resolution and working with the international institutions in this area, and it is something on which we are very strong. This is something we will continue to do. I hope I have covered most of what was asked in the questions.

The Chair asked about the visa situation. We welcome the change of Administration in the United States and the tone President Biden set within weeks of coming into office. He spoke openly about looking again, not just in the context of Ireland on which we have been working so hard but in an international context, at working on pathways to citizenship and regularising the status of people. This is a very welcome step. We welcome the work Congress is doing at present on this with the Administration. We will continue the work we have been doing. The undocumented Irish are people for whom we have worked very strongly over a number of years. It was very difficult in recent years to try to get a resolution on this. I hope this time around that Congress and the Administration will consider it as part of an enlarged solution. In the meanwhile, there are other visas such as the E3 Visa, for which we will continue to prioritise access.

The Minister, Deputy Coveney, has mentioned that there is a very difficult situation with regard to J1 visas at present. The decision on access is one for the US Administration. There are many deeply disappointed students in Ireland who would love to have had the option of a J1 visa.

I got a J1 visa and really enjoyed it but, unfortunately, that was a long time ago. I do not know whether this was raised, but it also impacted students who have gained scholarships to a large number of American universities and received a full offer of a place in the university but, unfortunately, do not have a visa access point. We continue to work to see what we can do in that regard as well.

I think that covers most of what I was asked.