Ms Áine Hearns:

I thank Senator Joe O'Reilly for the question. He is correct: education for girls is key. Some of the alarming statistics from Covid include an estimation that 20 million girls are expected to never return to school. Tackling this requires strengthening all of our partnerships and supporting those working on the ground to ensure that we can make a dent in those figures.

Later this month, there will be what is known as the Generation Equality Forum, which will be held in Paris. It is chaired by Mexico and France. Ireland will speak at the forum about the amount of measures that we are putting into this area in the coming years. More than $70 million will go to the global partnership for education. As part of gender transformative education, we will get $12 million earmarked for what we call the girls' accelerator mechanism. This is a 44% increase in funding to that area. It is about accelerating education for girls. We also know from our own research and experience that the longer we can keep girls in education, the better their outcomes will be as they mature through life and in their employment opportunities. It is of concern to us, the Department of Foreign Affairs, and the aid programme as well.

Senator Joe O'Reilly had a question on cultural differences when it comes to gender equality. For us in Ireland gender equality is non-negotiable, as are women's human rights. We also engage consistently with men and boys to bring them into the gender equality debate and into the women, peace and security agenda. The oversight group has had some sessions on this in recent years and research has been done on the area as well. It is important that we bring everybody on board. Gender equality is for everybody. It includes everybody's lives. It is non-negotiable for us. We are definitely doing a lot of work in that area as well. It is a priority for Ireland's foreign policy.

Many members will be aware of A Better World, our overseas development aid policy, which commits to an overarching focus on women and girls in all our partnerships and interventions. This is key for us. We also work with partners on the ground on cultural differences to understand these issues and to better educate organisations but also women and men in the national context. We are working on that with organisations and civil society groups in Palestine as well. Senator Joe O'Reilly is correct that gender equality is key. From our perspective on it, there is no compromising.