Mr. Dominic McSorley:

I appreciate the Deputy raising the issue of global food security. As he will be aware, this crisis has been happening for some time and has been propelled by the Covid pandemic. A total of 13 million people are struggling severely with acute food insecurity in the Horn of Africa alone, not to mention in Afghanistan. There is talk in Brussels of the doubling of the militarisation budget but we are not hearing anything about doubling the humanitarian budget for Ukraine. The flash appeal that was launched by the UN not long ago was for €1.14 billion and it has been only 37% funded. In the case of most food security appeals, they tend to be less than 50% funded.

Cash assistance is critical and we will use it in Ukraine. Mr. O'Sullivan outlined that in Ukraine, it will be critical to get larger sums than we would normally use in other contexts to cover rent and to keep people alive. We have seen the evolution of cash in places such as Somalia. It is very easy to distribute and target, particularly in conflict zones. It must be Ukraine as well as, not instead of, all the other crises.