Mr. Michael Gaffey:

We are very pleased to be in Limerick. Everybody working in Irish Aid who is working in Limerick is working there because they want to be in Limerick. The Deputy may recall that at the start, way back in 2008 when we were moving to the city, there was a sense that some people felt they were being forced to work in a different place. We have a very good system being based in Limerick and in Dublin. Dr. Hunt came up this morning. The train broke down but she made it all the same. Limerick is very important to us. At the start of decentralisation, some people said it would never work. It is now a system that is working very well. Working between Limerick, Dublin, Africa and elsewhere abroad taught us how to work remotely and with video conferencing long before many others had to do it. That has been a very good experience.

Official development assistance is the money that we in Irish Aid use. Irish Aid does not make up all of Ireland's ODA. Other Government Departments contribute towards ODA. Ireland's share of the EU development co-operation budget is not a cheque that we give but a calculation based on our GNI. It is not well known that as a net contributor now, Ireland has a bigger share of the EU development co-operation budget than we ever had. In 2021, it was around €240 million and next year we estimate it will be some €350 million.

Irish Aid is funded by Vote 27 of the Department of Foreign Affairs. In the budget it received an 8.4%, or €60 million, increase, bringing us to €767 million. This is the highest the aid budget of the Department of Foreign Affairs has ever been. Obviously, that is essential for our work. The increase is quite targeted. Some €30 million of it, combined with another €12.5 million from the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, will go towards the commitment made by the then Taoiseach and now Tánaiste in 2016 to reach a target of providing €225 million annually in international climate finance by 2025. With yesterday's announcement, we are well on course to meeting that target. International climate finance is very important in our development work because a huge amount of what is needed is adaptation to climate change by very poor countries and small island states. We are ramping up that work quickly, which is very important.

The other €30 million of the €60 million increase will focus very much on humanitarian emergency, Ukraine and the priority of food security and malnutrition, on which Ireland is taking an international lead. This is in addition to the funding we have from this year, which will be carried forward at that level next year.

I will explain briefly the target of 0.7% because it is a little complicated. As members will be aware, a percentage of GNI is the measure used. As GNI grows, it is difficult and a challenge to keep up and reach the 0.7% target. For quite a few years, Ireland's contribution was down at between 0.3% and 0.32%, which is not where anyone would want it to be. At the same time, the budgets were increasing every year. For a number of reasons, the figure has gone up significantly. We have been very transparent about this. There has been an increase because of increased funding and the increased share of the EU budget. The situation of refugees has also had an impact. The provision of services for Ukrainian refugees has had a major and, I hope, temporary impact. Under the OECD rules, the first-year costs for refugees in a country can be counted towards ODA. Last year, the government system provided services for more than 70,000 refugees. The number of Ukrainian refugees today is 95,000. Those first-year once-off costs brought our ODA up very significantly, to 0.63%, but Irish Aid and the Government are not, therefore, claiming that we are nearly at 0.7%. All of that money is ODA and it was all for refugees but if we exclude that element, Ireland's ODA stands at about 0.39%. We are making some progress and while it is difficult, it is progress nonetheless. We have had increases every year since the adoption of the sustainable development goals. We are at the highest ever level for the Department of Foreign Affairs.

On the refugee question, I emphasise that, unlike some other countries, we have not used any of the ODA allocation to Irish Aid and the Department of Foreign Affairs for refugee costs. Those costs have been separate and additional. Some countries have been forced to use that ODA money for their in-country refugee costs. That is where we are at the moment.