Mr. John Whyte:

I thank Deputy Brennan for that question. UNWRA has had perennial challenges in relation to funding. It is unlike many other agencies because it gets some of its funding from the core budget of the UN, from New York, but most of its funding is discretionary, coming from member states. Ireland has the distinction of being one of the top ten funders of UNWRA and, per capita, may even be one of the best. The extraordinary generosity of the Irish people is well recognised in Gaza. The fact that I am from Ireland does me no harm when I am working for UNWRA in the region with my colleagues. Nevertheless, the funding situation for the agency has continuously deteriorated. The budget of €1.2 billion to sustain operations in the five areas we work, namely, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza, has been unchanged since 2013, yet the amount of funding we get each year has dropped. Obviously, the US Administration cut funding back in 2016 under the Trump Administration. Under Biden, some of that funding was reinstated, but then, when Trump was re-elected, the funding was discontinued. We have struggled as an agency to replace that funding. We have to look to all sources, including member states, private giving and philanthropic sources. Typically, we get to about the middle of the year and then just hold our breath and go week by week until we can get to the end of the year. This year, of course, is even worse than previous years. The allegations made by Israel dented confidence in donors initially, but all but one or two came back to us because they were not convinced by those allegations. Therefore, our funding was somehow resumed, but nevertheless we have a funding gap of about €150 million to the year’s end and no certainty we can continue to pay salaries up until the end of the year. That leaves us under enormous pressure as an agency in sustaining the salaries of staff in Gaza, but also in the other fields, of course. You can appreciate that, for them, if the agency is not able to pay the salaries, it amounts to almost a death sentence for people living there. Without a salary, it is very hard to exist there because there is no social safety net. There are very limited supports. There is a blockade and the supplies getting in are very limited. You can appreciate that this is a critical situation for our staff. Of course, our staff may be better off than others because at least they have a salary within the UN system. UNWRA does not pay as well as some of the other UN agencies because it has such a large body of local staff; nevertheless, there is fear. Already the Commissioner-General has had to put about 800 staff in Egypt on exceptional leave without pay since early this year. Everyone is afraid the next decision could impact on them and they fear the consequences.

On the impact on services, the war has impacted on everything we are trying to do, of course. We used to have about 300 schools to educate about 300,000 children, but most of those schools have been damaged, if not completely destroyed, and are now serving as shelters for desperate homeless people. We are doing what we can to create temporary learning spaces within those so we can continue to provide some direct face-to-face engagement through psychosocial supports and recreational activities; however, with the influx of people from Gaza city, our learning spaces are under pressure. Thousands of people with nowhere to go are starting to take over some of these spaces and it is very hard for us to prevent that. It is understandable why people with nothing are looking for something or anything.

We are continuing to maintain our health services. Before the war, we had 26 health centres. Now, in the south, I believe we have three functioning. Where populations are concentrated, we have established medical points, which are like smaller versions of the centres. We are thankful to the WHO for helping to bring in some medical supplies for us and the other health partners. We are at least able to manage. We have about 16 core medicines and we keep a count of these on an ongoing basis. In about 50% of cases, we have less than one month’s stock available. It is still not great because these core medicines are used for all the regular things all of us would go to our GP for, such as non-communicable illnesses and chronic diseases requiring medication. Theses medicines are in very short supply. It is very hard to get insulin in, so diabetics find it very difficult.

We continue to provide protection supports for vulnerable groups as much as we can in the context, but the main thing is that our staff have decades of experience. We have been in the region for more than 75 years. There are colleagues who have worked there for 20, 30 or 40 years. It is a lifetime job with UNWRA. They have dedication and perspective and they have been through wars before, although maybe not one as bad as the current one. They are adaptable.

Most of our staff are teachers. Some 9,000 of the 12,000 staff, and there were 13,000 staff before the war, are teachers. Approximately half of those have had to adapt to other types of emergency operations that we provide, including supporting people in our shelters, etc. I hope that answers the Deputy's question.