Mr. Conor O'Neill:

I agree with Ms Curran. I totally recognise the challenge that the Chairman highlighted. It is not too dissimilar to that highlighted by Deputy Bruton. That is the challenge for the 220-odd people who are lucky enough to be Members of this Parliament. They have to try to reconcile those political differences. There is a deep bedrock of internationalism in Ireland that is not always evident elsewhere in the world. It is one of the reasons that we have such a good reputation in the provision of aid, for example. There are a lot of organisations and people here who really care about the bigger picture. That is something that we can draw on. On the flip side, the challenge I would put to the politicians is that when it gets to that micro level and some decision in a constituency or at a local level, they should reject the obvious cynical move of using it as an opportunity to fight with another party. It does sometimes happen that the easiest thing in the world to do is to point out what is difficult. Much of what we are talking about here is going to require a critical mass of politicians to say things that are hard. It was the same during the pandemic. It would have been easy enough to put our fingers in our ears, but we did not do that. I would hope that the fact that the news we have seen, not just from Pakistan and east Africa but also across the European Continent this summer, including wildfires and the impact they had, is something that will hopefully help the penny to drop here that we need to play our part. I urge political representatives to be willing to stand up and take that leadership, even when it is really difficult electorally.