Ms Fiona Gannon:

I will outline some matters relating to staff and scale, the issues behind some of the questions. We have approximately 40 international staff and approximately 600 national staff in South Sudan the moment. Reference was made to security. I will add a little to what Ms O'Mahony has said. One of the new dynamics since December has been the free movement of our national staff around the country. We must be careful about who moves where according to ethnicity. This is a major change for South Sudan. It means that some of our international staff from Kenya and Uganda do not have freedom of movement. There are certain areas they can go while there are other areas where they cannot and this has to be factored in when planning for our staff and security. It is something we must continue to observe.

A question was asked about whether the peace will hold and whether we were optimistic. I would like to think that I would be optimistic but I am a little cynical. The timing of the peace agreement is fortuitous. We are heading into the rainy season and typically - any South Sudan observer would confirm it - this is when fighting slows down anyway because it has to slow down. It is in everyone's interests that a peace accord is signed and I am hopeful that pressure can be brought to bear on the leaders and that they manage to hold the peace.

One of the biggest challenges in recent months has been the translation of the high-level peace agreement to individual fighters on the ground. There does not appear to be the necessary coherence from the top level down to the fighters on the ground. All this makes me question whether some of the alliances of the anti-government forces or pro-government forces are true, whether they are banding together because they believe in something or simply because it is a good opportunity to gain ground or power.

Questions were asked about how the peace agreement or new initiative can be made more effective. I do not know. If we knew the answer to that we would probably not be working for the organisations we are working for. One of the reasons the peace agreement was signed yesterday was because there were threats of sanctions from the members of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development. That was very interesting. It was the first evidence of strong rhetoric from their peers and it seemed to have some kind of positive effect. If such supports could be boosted by countries like Ireland and if the members of IGAD could be backed up and supported it would have benefits.

My personal concern is that it is a little late. The committee asked about the planting season. The planting season is starting. In normal years because of the challenges in South Sudan, including poor road infrastructure etc., agencies like ourselves would have pre-positioned supplies in advance. That pre-positioning window is effectively closed now, at least in respect of road transport. Therefore, we would have to consider a massive and expensive airlifting operation to get seeds and tools and so on into remote areas in order that people could actually plant on time. My concern is that we are looking at weeks rather than months and I am unsure whether there is sufficient time to pre-position all the necessary stocks and supplies. Perhaps other colleagues could comment on that.

Deputy Eric Byrne asked about the role of Sudan, an interesting question. Better and more seasoned commentators than I could comment on the role of Sudan but I believe there is an opportunity in respect of Sudan and what could be done from the Sudan side in terms of access and opening up corridors to allow some humanitarian access between the countries. Recently I was in Sudan and I know that agencies there face similar challenges when it comes to trying to access newly-arrived populations from South Sudan.

It is interesting that in North Sudan they cannot be called refugees, they are called displaced groups, which shows how North Sudan views the arrivals from South Sudan. There would be opportunities should North Sudan be willing to assist.

Various people asked about tribalism. I worry a bit about the oversimplification that can happen when we talk about tribalism. It is true, however, that there have been very clear ethnic divisions in this recent conflict in South Sudan. That harks back to the peace agreement signed all those years ago when there were opportunities to sow seeds of good governance that were not taken up. The big lesson, should this fresh peace agreement hold, is that countries such as Ireland need to push harder for the international community to examine the underlying causes of conflict and truly try to grapple with those issues and areas of governance.