Ms Jane-Ann McKenna:

This is one of the reasons we had the briefing last week. I thank the Chairman for having us in today. As a sector, we are struggling to get this message across and sound the alarm. We need political support to that. It is not just about us as international organisations but about having the political will here in Ireland to be able to scale up what we are doing. There is a huge amount of public support in Ireland for overseas development assistance. Dóchas monitors that on a regular basis and we can see that level of support there. What we require is the energy at a political level to actually draw attention to the crises. We need to use our position on the UN Security Council, our position within the EU and our reputation on a global stage to sound the alarm a bit more strongly. We must scale up ourselves but also advocate for others to do so.

There were a number of questions so I might divide them up between my colleagues. Mr. O'Brien might answer the question about gender and the impact on women and girls, not only from because of this food crisis but a number of other areas we have touched on today.