Ms Caoimhe de Barra:

That is precisely it. They are incredibly closely interlinked. In any major crisis such as this, food supply is not usually the problem. The problem is accessibility and the fact that people cannot afford to buy the food that is available. Both Russia and Ukraine are huge grain suppliers and supply sunflower seeds and oil as well. The immediate impact of the Ukraine crisis will be to increase the cost of procuring food for the WFP very significantly. That will be the immediate impact on the UN's responses to existing hunger crises. What will happen at a more general level with generalised food price increases, which are also in part caused by fuel price increases, is that the price of food for the ordinary person will increase. For people on low incomes, a huge proportion of their income is spent on food and transport, that is, bus fares to their place of work or education. The third piece is the cost of rent if they are in rented accommodation. Food prices and fuel prices will increase so we are going to see huge spikes in poverty among people, even people who are not living in conflict-affected countries.

As Mr. McSorley said, there is a food security crisis across east Africa and in many other countries that is almost unparalleled. The UN has said that 274 million people were in immediate need of humanitarian assistance prior to the Ukraine crisis and that is almost double the figure from two years ago. We are already facing a huge humanitarian crisis across the world. One of the most effective things we can do is take early action. Many of the crises we are dealing with can be anticipated. Ukraine is one of the exceptions because nobody saw it coming. We know when harvests are due and we know when they are not going to come. A colleague of mine came home from Zimbabwe yesterday. The harvest there is supposed to happen in April and driving through central Zimbabwe, he saw 80% of the crops wilted in the fields. That is a country that was not even on the radar a couple of months ago. The level of food insecurity and hunger is huge.

Our group would fully support a recommendation to the Government not only to protect its entire aid budget but to increase it. The Government has committed to 0.7% so now is the time for it to look at front-loading that commitment by increasing the aid budget by a disproportionately high percentage in the forthcoming budget. In the interim, it should ensure the pledges that are being made are not displacing humanitarian funding to other crises but are additional. Unfortunately, expenditure on support to refugees in host countries such as Ireland can now technically be considered official development assistance, ODA, under the OECD Development Assistance Committee, DAC, rules. This is something we entirely disagree with. It does not align with Ireland's values or principles. The Government should make a point of ensuring that expenditure on support to Ukrainian refugees in Ireland does not come from ODA, and should make that a strong point internationally.

We are incredibly concerned about the protection of vulnerable people who are displaced, and people displaced over borders in particular. Trócaire works with Caritas Internationalis, which has already supported 250,000 people in Ukraine and Poland. I again recognise the presence of the ambassador of Poland and the incredible work the Government of Poland has been doing with civil society in this response.

As more vulnerable people come to the borders, the more people there are who are incredibly vulnerable to being trafficked. One in four people in Europe trafficked into forms of modern slavery are children. Unfortunately, in Ireland we will not be immune to this. The risk at the border is extremely high. The provision of support to typically underfunded services such as the protection services and the safeguarding trafficking services in all of those border countries is incredibly important.