Ms Caoimhe de Barra:

I thank the Chairman for his question on the IEA, which is a relatively young organisation but one that is based on a model that exists in many other countries and has operated extremely effectively for many years. The principle it is based on is that, in any humanitarian emergency, we need to act quickly to co-ordinate all of the disparate actors that are working to support the people affected by the crisis within the affected country but also outside it. The IEA is made up of seven Irish humanitarian and development NGOs, including Trócaire.

We are responding collectively to both fundraise and support the co-ordination and sharing of information on our operations in and around Ukraine. This has already proved extremely useful and fruitful. We have a three-week long co-ordinated fundraising campaign which reduces the cost to each individual agency, for example, of buying media time, and it gives the public an additional port of call. It is effective in terms of giving the public a simpler set of choices. However, what we are also able to identify as seven agencies working locally is that we have better scale and impact through co-ordinated action. I mentioned earlier that Trócaire, through Caritas, has already reached 250,000 people in Ukraine and Poland. Adding the other six agencies and their scale and reach and the way we are able to co-ordinate and share information and distribute analysis among ourselves mean that the impact is much stronger across the seven agencies.

In other countries where these mechanisms have existed for a longer period than here in Ireland, typically the agencies get support from the government in terms of match funding. In the UK, Netherlands, Japan, Switzerland and many other countries, often the government will match funding, possibly up to a certain level, and provide that to the co-ordinated alliance model. That works very effectively.

Co-ordination within the country is also extremely important. Mr. O'Sullivan may have mentioned it a little earlier. The situation in Ukraine is not always parallel to other situations where we are in that the institutions in Ukraine work. It is a country with well-established governance, administrative institutions and a very strong and active civil society, so it is no accident that there are over 100 collective centres established very quickly. Many of those are based on units that already existed. Caritas Ukraine had 70 centres in operation any day of the week across the country prior to the crisis, so there is an opportunity to work with and to strengthen the local civil society and civil authority systems. The last thing we should do is undermine it by imposing external models. That is not what is needed.

As Mr. O'Sullivan and Mr. Morris have said, there is a system there that we must lean into and support, and that is in terms of funding, the cash for what people locally know is needed, and the technical expertise which they may be missing, although there are high levels of skills and capacity locally. It is important to note that over the past month, as inevitably happens in any humanitarian response, local people volunteer. They put their own lives on hold and volunteer to respond. However, a volunteer-led response can only last so long. All those people need to somehow create their livelihoods again. As a result, we must enable, in a solid manner, as Mr. O'Sullivan said, those local organisations to expand, to have more staff employed and to have the skills and technical expertise they need to mount a long-term response. Unfortunately, this response is going to last a long time, and it is the local institutions that will be there long after this has disappeared from the media headlines.

We know that local co-ordination is working very well. For example, the cash working group, which is an essential part of the humanitarian system, is working very well. It is working very well with government, identifying what the obstacles are and moving them on. Integrating the cash with the social protection system is very important. Again, administrative systems exist, and we must support and build on them. That is just a note on local co-ordination.

The final thing I will mention is the corridors. This is absolutely crucial. Our experience is that in certain areas of the country there is reasonably good mobility, but in areas of conflict humanitarian convoys are being shelled. We are having to shift from using something that might be identifiable as a humanitarian convoy to smaller vehicles that are operating in a more informal way. That immediately reduces the volume of goods that one can move from one place to another. It reinforces and underscores the importance of diplomacy and the importance of putting pressure for a negotiated ceasefire. One thing that has not come up is the almost complete absence, from what we know, of women's voices in any negotiations that are happening. Ireland has an incredibly strong record on ensuring that women are involved in an equal, meaningful and participative way in peace negotiations. If women are not at the table, the whole community will regret that for many years down the line. Something that the Irish Government could do in its international diplomacy and its work at the UN Security Council is ensure that the advocacy and diplomacy include ensuring the full, equal and meaningful participation of women in the negotiations on a lasting peace.