Vice Chairman:

Apologies have been received from the Chairperson, Deputy Flanagan, who is deputising for the Ceann Comhairle in Europe this week and so cannot be here. The British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly has been meeting in Cavan for the past couple of days and today and will be attended by Senator Wilson. Are there any other apologies?

Gerard Craughwell (Independent)
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I must go to another meeting but I will be back as soon as I can.

Vice Chairman:

I welcome H.E. Michael K. Mubea, the Kenyan ambassador to Ireland, who is with us in the Visitors Gallery. Today's meeting revolves around a meeting with representatives of Dóchas to discuss the global food crisis, an update on the famine in the Horn of Africa and looking ahead to COP27. We are joined by Ms Jane-Ann McKenna, CEO of Dóchas; Ms Réiseal Ní Chéilleachair, head of international advocacy with Concern Worldwide; and Mr. Colm Byrne, gender and humanitarian advocacy adviser with Trócaire. We are also joined virtually by Mr. Dominic Crowley, emergency director, Concern Worldwide, and Mr. Paul Healy, Trócaire country director for Somalia, both of whom are speaking to us from Nairobi. I thank all our witnesses for making themselves available. The format is the usual one. We will hear opening statements followed by questions and answers from members of the committee. I ask members to be concise in order to allow witnesses to give full and detailed answers.

I remind witnesses of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory regarding an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative they comply with any such direction. There are some limitations to parliamentary privilege for witnesses attending remotely and as such, they may not benefit from the same level of immunity from legal proceedings as a witness physically present does. I remind members that they are only allowed to participate in this meeting if they are physically located in the Leinster House complex. I invite Ms McKenna to make her opening statement.

Ms Jane-Ann McKenna:

I thank the Vice Chairman and the committee for the invitation to meet it today to continue our engagement with it on the global food crisis, in particular on the situation facing millions in the Horn of Africa. By now, members have already have heard the calls to action to avert catastrophe. It is not an exaggeration to say that the catastrophe has already arrived and a rapid escalation of humanitarian aid into areas facing famine is needed. While I am reading this statement,12 more people will have died in east Africa due to lack of food and related complications.

Since May of this year, estimates of the number of people across the world who will experience crisis levels of hunger in 2022 has risen from 181 million people in 41 countries to 345 million. The G7 says 323 million people are on the brink of starvation. The global hunger index released last week confirmed that hunger levels are reaching catastrophic proportions, with 44 countries suffering with serious or alarming levels of hunger. There is no doubt but that the numbers will increase, given the millions displaced and lives up-ended in another recent climate crisis in Pakistan. That we are experiencing an unprecedented global emergency is undisputed.

I am joined today in person by Réiseal Ní Chéilleachair of Concern Worldwide and Colm Byrne of Trócaire. I am very pleased to also be joined by Paul Healy, Trócaire's country director for Somalia,and Dominic Crowley, Concern Worldwide's emergency director, who is also speaking to us from the region.

Before I hand over to my colleagues, I will give a short update of what has changed since we last met the committee in June. Back then, we said that one person was dying from hunger every 48 seconds in the Horn of Africa. Now it is estimated that one person is dying every 36 seconds. Back then, we knew there was a possibility the next rainy season due to start this month would fail. Now we know for sure that this has happened, leaving communities facing into a fifth consecutive season of failed rains. This is an historic situation by any accounts. Back then, we warned that despite our help, hundreds of thousands of children would die for lack of food and adequate nutrition. Now we are seeing children dying daily, many of whom have arrived too weak and too ill to health centres after long arduous journeys with their families.

That anyone anywhere is dying of hunger in 2022 is unacceptable. That any child would spend its first years knowing nothing but hunger should shock us all into action. In recent months, both the Irish people and the Irish Government have acted. The recent visit by the Minister of State, Deputy Brophy, to Kenya and Ireland’s announcement that it would allocate an additional €30 million to the situation in the Horn of Africa for 2022 are to be particularly welcomed, as is the announcement of increased funding for overseas development aid in budget 2023. On that, I thank the committee for its support and engagement with us and with the Government. As with all funding, we ask that the release of such funding be expedited or more lives will be lost unnecessarily. It is vital that Ireland continues to show solidarity with those who are living through the worst drought in 40 years.

COP 27, which takes place in two weeks' time, presents an opportunity to accelerate our global ambition to tackle the climate emergency and to place climate justice and human rights at the heart of climate action.

Climate security is now a critical issue that requires new thinking and new solutions. No country in the G20 is decarbonising quickly enough to maintain a safe climate and that is putting more lives and livelihoods at risk, in particular in countries such as Somalia that have done little to contribute to the problem.

A critical issue for the communities with whom we work is that of loss and damage. Countries in the global south are experiencing massive losses and damages from climate change impacts and have the least financial and technical resources to cope. This is diverting much-needed public finance for sustainable development into dealing with the crises and is pushing countries further into debt. It is a matter of climate justice that richer countries including Ireland contribute to and support the development of this third pillar of finance under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC.

We are asking all the committee members here today, as well as all Oireachtas Members, to support our call to action to Ireland, that is, to release flexible multi-year funding to meet the current humanitarian needs and that those funds reach as many NGOs and local organisations as possible who are the front-line responders; to continue to grow Ireland’s budget in line with our commitment to spending 0.7% of GNI on official development assistance, ODA, by 2030; and to advocate at the UN Security Council and in relevant international forums for accountability for those who seek to use starvation as a weapon of war. We ask Ireland to support the scale up of investment in social protection programmes and sustainable livelihoods to protect and strengthen hard-won development gains. Last, we ask Ireland to support the establishment of a loss and damage finance facility at COP 27 and to follow the lead of other countries such as Denmark, and to commit initial loss and damage finance, as a sign of leadership on the issue.

We need political action and leadership to prevent this catastrophe from getting worse. Each day of delay exacerbates human suffering, increases the scale of the crisis and raises the cost of the response. I will now hand over to Mr. Paul Healy who will speak about the reality on the ground in Somalia. He will be followed by Mr. Dominic Crowley, after which my colleagues and I would welcome input from members and will answer any questions they may have.

Mr. Paul Healy:

It is a pleasure to be here and I thank members for taking the time. Every week over the past six weeks I have been in Gedo and every week, I have seen children die or have heard the following morning that a child had died during the night. Every week we are hearing of mothers and children coming into Dolow and Luuq in Gedo, having walked for a week or two weeks and barely having enough strength to get to our facilities. Children have died on their way and have been buried on the side of the road in shallow graves because the parents or the mother is too weak to dig a deeper grave. The situation is apocryphal and it is catastrophic. In this day and age, it is a complete political failure and more needs to be done.

In 2011 we said, “Never again”. Political leaders, UN agencies and others said, “This will never happen again”. Now in 2022, it is happening all over again. It is a political failure. We are appreciative of the steps and the leadership taken by the Irish Government and Irish Aid in supporting the crisis in east Africa but more still needs to be done. One would hope that there is leadership for Europeans and others in the global north to address this crisis. Already we are too late for thousands and thousands of people who are going to die in the coming weeks or have died in the past few weeks. Women and children in particular bear the brunt of this. Over 80% of the people coming into internally displaced camps are women and children. They are exposed to significant malnutrition as well as the risks of sexual exploitation and abuse. Half a million children are currently starving in Somalia and 1.8 million children are reaching that point, along with 500,000 mothers who are pregnant or lactating and are struggling to survive and unable to feed their children.

A large reason for this is that climate change has not been properly addressed. We have seen over years and years the global north exploiting the resources of this planet. The people of Somalia have done little to contribute to that and yet there is little or no compensation to the Somali people for the consequences that they are now facing. Some 3 million livestock animals have already died in Somalia. A whole way of life has been destroyed. It is simply unacceptable in this day and age to stand back and to not take heed of the consequences of our actions over decades.

There are solutions to this if we act now. Immediately, there are life-savings solutions. We are deeply appreciative of the leadership and support of the Irish Government, the Irish public and Irish Aid but other long-term solutions need to be put in place that I hope COP27 will address and in which the Irish Government will take an active part. As already has been said, we need multi-annual and predictable funding for durable solutions for sustainable livelihoods to try to address the impoverishment of people in the global south, particularly here in the Horn of Africa, where whole livelihoods have been destroyed and possibly forever. I also appeal to the Irish Government to consider again the commitments that we have made over decades to the 0.7% of GNI. While the current response is deeply appreciated, we can do more as Irish people. The idea is in our DNA and in our historical memory that the poorest, the most marginalised and the most left behind should not be forgotten. I make the passionate plea to the Members of the Oireachtas and to all the Irish public to take leadership and to show the compassion that is our historical right and is in our memory.

Mr. Dominic Crowley:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak to it. I will cover some of the same ground that Mr. Healy has already covered so my apologies for that. As Ms McKenna has said, I am in Nairobi but I got in yesterday evening from Mogadishu. I want to talk a little about the situation in Mogadishu and in Baidoa. The time that I spent in Mogadishu and Baidoa gave me the opportunity to speak with our staff, with NGOs, both national and international, with the UN and with the minister for humanitarian aid for the state in which Baidoa lies.

The one message that everyone gave me is that this is the worst crisis in living memory. It is worse than the famine in 1992 when Mary Robinson famously made her visit. It is worse than the famine of 2016-17. Between them, those two famines killed between 500,000 and 600,000 people. It is unimaginable, as we have heard already, that we are facing another crisis of at least the same order of magnitude, not least because we have been shouting about the danger of this for the last 18 months.

I will speak about the things that I saw while I was in Mogadishu. I visited a stabilisation centre in Banadir Hospital, which is the national referral hospital for mothers and children. The ICU in the hospital would break your heart, with desperately emaciated children with multiple health complications as a result of acute malnutrition. The admissions into the unit have more than doubled in the last couple of months and are running at more than twice the number for the same period last year.

We are helping as much as we can. On the day after I visited, the slab was poured for a new unit that is being created. The unit will only accommodate 45 children. As the crisis deepens, which we all know it will, the capacity is inadequate for the level of need we will see.

I also visited one of our mother and child health, MCH, clinics in Mogadishu. They were so overloaded by the caseload in the last couple of months that we have had to open a second MCH clinic close by. The caseload is manageable but they are operating at very close to full capacity. The focus in these clinics is on children under five and pregnant and lactating mothers, looking at giving them nutritional and health support and at giving health education to the mothers. Standing inside the clinic, the youthfulness of the mothers was bluntly and brutally obvious. One of the common distress factors we see at the start of a crisis is that young girls are married off to take them out of a household and remove the burden of having to feed them. We saw that in Mogadishu and in the camps in Baidoa. Even our national staff are surprised at how young these women are who are giving birth.

The first time I was in Baidoa was almost exactly 30 years ago, when I responded to the 1992-93 famine. The situation is at least as bad now. There are approximately 500,000 people living in camps north and south of Baidoa. The population of the camps is greater than that of the town. When we talk about camps, these are not formal, structured centres. They are incredibly basic shelters of branches cut from trees and covered in sheets, blankets and, in some cases, tarpaulins. This is where people are living. Cooking is a couple of rocks outside with firewood put into them to try to cook on pots out in the open. Water is provided from tap stands like that depicted on the slide. Women and children queue to collect water in jerry cans. That is their water for the day.

The image on the current slide is one I stole from Voice of America. It depicts Baidoa camp. To the front is a big grey slab, which is the water bladder. That is what we fill at the start of each day. Once it is emptied, it is more or less gone for the day unless we can get more water to it, which is becoming increasingly difficult. Four wells out of hundreds dug in Baidoa in recent years remain operational.

We have had four failed rains. We are facing into the fifth rain failure. As Mr. Healy stated, 3 million livestock have died. The land has become so dry that no crops have been planted or harvested. Even if rain came, the soil is too hard for it to percolate effectively.

No discussion of Baidoa is complete without discussion of the role of al-Shabaab. The women with whom I spoke said one of the main reasons they fled their areas - and, as Mr. Healy said, people walked for seven to ten days to get to this set of camps - was they were afraid their children would be conscripted. The boys would be taken in to be al-Shabaab fighters and the young girls passed on as brides for older fighters. They said that even if the rains came, they could not go back because the threat to their children remained.

This is measles in the camps and an uncontrolled outbreak of measles will kill children very quickly. If we get rain in such unsanitary circumstances, we will, at the very least, get an increase in malaria and, in all likelihood, in serious waterborne diseases such as cholera. At the moment, aid to the camps is pitifully low. If people feel forced to migrate again, they will do so in a weakened state. It is questionable as to how many of them will survive the journey. Baidoa's nickname in Somali is "Baidoa Janaay". It is far from that at present.

I do not know if people have seen or read the report from Andrew Harding that came out a few days ago. It is well worth watching. It tells the story of the first of the two little red bundles on the bed shown on the current slide. It is a two-year-old boy. This is the story of his death. In the time before he died, he weighed 4.6 kg, not much more than a well-fed child at birth.

The issue of funding has been mentioned. The UN appeal has increased to $2.27 billion. This seems like a lot but, rationed out among the people who are supposed to received it, it equates to $440 per person. The appeal has received less than half, 47.3%, of the funding. This equates to $160 per person for the year, and that is to provide shelter, food, water and health. It is woefully inadequate for the level of need we face. It is no wonder the number of people in acute need of life-saving interventions is increasing dramatically, when we fail to provide the basics these people need. If there is a bright light in this situation - and it is difficult to find - it is that the US has been responsive and provided 67% of all funding made available to the humanitarian response plan of the UN. It is not the only funding mechanism, but it is the most important one. We welcome the recent commitment from Irish Aid to support the response in the Horn but far more engagement is needed from all donors if famine and further unnecessary deaths are to be averted.

Vice Chairman:

I thank Mr. Crowley, Ms McKenna and Mr. Healy. It is sobering to hear in the presentations of the deterioration since June, when Ms McKenna was here last. To hear terms such as "alarming", "catastrophic" and "worst ... in living memory" points to the scale of the task at hand and to the terrible destruction visited on the countries in the horn, namely Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. We have heard the witnesses' asks on the part of those they represent. We acknowledge them.

I ask members for their contributions and questions. Senator Joe O'Reilly is due to chair a debate in the Seanad, so he will be taken first.

Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)
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I appreciate the Vice Chair accommodating me. I hope colleagues will understand that I have to leave. We all want to indicate our support before we go wherever we have to go. We want to do more than that, if we can, later. I welcome the guests. It is good that they are here and that we hear this.

As the Vice Chair said, we are hearing dramatic words. This is another step today. It is only now properly dawning on people in this country the scale of the problem in the Horn of Africa. Few people were aware of it but it is percolating down now. It is important that people know of it and understand it. The witnesses' figures, stats and video clips are shocking.

Ms McKenna stated: "While I am reading this statement,12 more people will have died in east Africa due to lack of food and related complications." All of those figures were shocking, including that the number who have experienced crisis levels of hunger is up from 181 million people in 41 countries to 345 million now. It was also stated that at one point in the Horn of Africa a person was dying from hunger every 48 seconds. A few months later, a person is dying every 36 seconds. It is no harm to read that into the record again.

This is a shocking horror story and it behoves us to do something about it. It hits education and it hits women and children more. All of those points are valid. Ms McKenna mentioned speeding up aid and the money getting out there. The committee will support that. If there is anything we can do about the matter, including going to the Minister or whatever it takes, I would be in favour of doing it. We should go on increasing the money for aid. This is an emergency and there should be an emergency payment. We have problems in Ireland but nothing in this compares with our domestic troubles so we should be supportive.

I was going to ask a few quick questions. Ms McKenna stated, "We ask Ireland to support the scale up of investment in social protection programmes and sustainable livelihoods" and "we ask Ireland to support the establishment of a loss and damage finance facility at COP27". Ms McKenna might elaborate on what exactly that is and if there is anything we could do in that regard. The rest of it is self-evident and before I finish I want to indicate my support. Any sane response to this would be that we should support the expedition of an increase in aid. We should do something about it immediately. I propose that we might go to the Minister especially on this or do whatever it takes to effect some change on it.

Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for giving so freely of their time. There is no easy way of saying this, but I felt physically sick when I read the opening statement and saw that one death every 48 seconds is down to one every 36 seconds. Naively, I had hoped, against all the evidence that it would hold somewhere in and around where it had been and that the increase in the number of deaths would not be as severe. However, that lays bare, in very stark terms, the challenges that exist and the huge impact this is having across the countries that have been mentioned.

I want to ask some specific questions and then to dip into COP27. When Mr. Crowley was speaking I was minded of the five usable wells left from the hundreds that have been dug. Is the loss of those wells solely to do with climate change and the ground drying out or are there any other impacts involved?

In the run-up to COP27, I have been reading, as most people have how it is being framed as an African conference. I would imagine that is being done in some ways to draw more attention to the crisis emerging there. I am seeing and hearing about all this enhanced collaboration and new strategies. In the context the countries that are most closely involved, the neighbouring countries and Egypt, is the urgency that seems to be expressed by them being reciprocated by others? Is that same understanding being reciprocated through the actions of other countries?

The Santiago Network was established at COP26. This was broadly welcomed at the time in the context of the loss-and-damage initiative, but are we seeing any meaningful outcomes from it? It would be seen as a more long-term approach but are we seeing anything come out of that? What I am hearing from the witnesses is that there have been pledges of support, some of which have yet to materialise, that there are short-term actions that need to happen now and that there are longer-term strategies required.

I also watched Andrew Harding's news report. It broke my heart as a parent and a public representative. Where the pledges of support are not coming through, is there anything we can do on the international stage to encourage them to come through a little bit stronger and more quickly? Between the long-term strategy and the urgent need, what role can Ireland play in ensuring that the immediate need is met on an immediate basis?

I agree with everything that has been said about the disproportionate impact events like this have in the context of gender. Whether it is sexual exploitation or abuse, additional resources are needed for pregnant women and nursing mums. What can we do to address these issues? We have increased the levels of aid and we have seen that we have a good international reputation in Irish Aid and overseas development. From the long-term and the short-term perspective, what would the witnesses ask us to lobby the Oireachtas for?

Ms Jane-Ann McKenna:

I might refer the question on the water and well situation to Mr. Crowley and Mr. Byrne would be best-placed to answer the loss and damage question from Senator O'Reilly. Then I will pass over to Ms Ní Chéilleachair on the short and long-term actions we could take.

Mr. Dominic Crowley:

I thank Deputy Clarke for her questions. If I said there are five wells, I meant to say there are four. Apparently, there are only four usable wells in Baidoa. That is for a combination of reasons. The wells tap into the aquifer and the aquifer is not being replenished because the rains are not coming. The Deputy heard that we have had four and a half failed rains, which we expect to become five, and that there has been no opportunity for the aquifer to be replenished. As a result, there is no water to tap into. The second aspect is the sheer volume of population. You cannot increase the population of an area by 150% and expect scarce resources to spread widely enough to meet the extra demand. It is a combination of those two factors.

Mr. Colm Byrne:

I welcome the opportunity to explain loss and damage because our sense is that it is not always necessarily well understood. We talk about ODA and international development assistance and we talk about this being equivalent to 0.7% of gross national income. In addition to ODA we talk about climate finance. Climate finance is for climate adaptation and mitigation. The origins of the discussion around climate finance go back as far as 2009 in Copenhagen and were reinforced at COP21 in the Paris Agreement of 2015. Climate finance is a commitment by the richest countries in the world to provide $100 billion to the least developed countries that are least able to respond to the challenges of the climate crisis. The ODA target is 0.7% of gross national income and Ireland is only meeting half of that obligation. We have climate finance for adaptation and mitigation and Ireland has committed €225 million for same. So far, we have only provided €90 million. Some estimates suggest that we should be providing as much as €900 million per year. That is 0.7% ODA, as much as €900 million in climate adaptation and mitigation and then we have the separate issue of loss and damage.

Let me give the committee a practical example of what we mean by loss and damage. If you can imagine that if you are living as temperatures rise, mitigation would be the opportunity to provide air conditioning to your house. Adaptation would be the opportunity to get drought resistant seed, which would enable you to grow crops which are more conducive to the warming environment.

Loss and damage is what happens when it is no longer possible to adapt and mitigate. It would be the equivalent of someone's house no longer being usable or inhabitable and their land no longer productive. Our ask, as an aid community, is that Ireland should provide 0.7% and should move towards that target. We should make those commitments in terms of climate finance. This is an opportunity for us to provide a form of progressive leadership to the international community, particularly within the EU and among the world's most developed states, by making a landmark commitment to loss and damage. Denmark has already set the standard. It has provided a small amount of funding, equivalent to €13 million. This is an opportunity for Ireland to make a statement in advance of COP.

Deputy Clarke asked what we can do. This is an opportunity for Ireland to provide leadership, to be the first and to demonstrate to others, in advance of COP27, what is possible and that we are committed to supporting loss and damage. The Deputy mentioned the Santiago Network. The Santiago Network is an opportunity to provide technical support to countries in addressing climate change, climate adaptation and mitigation. The challenge is that it is equivalent to having an architect but having no money to build the house. It is technical support but there is no financing behind it. The ask is 0.7% plus the climate finance and the loss-and-damage funding, but the real opportunity is for Ireland to stand apart within the international community. We exist at a time when the multilateral system is failing. Many European countries are already starting to reduce aid budgets. Ireland has taken an important step forward by increasing it quantitatively. As others go low, it is important that we stay high, continue on this positive track and set the standard for others to follow.

Vice Chairman:

There was a commitment from the international community, originating back in Copenhagen in 2009, with regard to climate finance. What was the figure Mr. Byrne mentioned there?

Mr. Colm Byrne:

It was $100 billion per year.

Vice Chairman:

What did those commitments turn into thereafter?

Mr. Colm Byrne:

I do not have the number to hand.

Vice Chairman:

Would it be similar to the ratio of €95 million against €225 million that was mentioned?

Mr. Colm Byrne:

For Ireland's commitment-----

Vice Chairman:

Would Ireland's ratio be similar to the international commitment?

Mr. Colm Byrne:

Ireland's payment at the moment is around €95 million-----

Vice Chairman:

Against a commitment of €225 million.

Mr. Colm Byrne:

-----but our target is €225 million so we are quite short.

Vice Chairman:

That is about 35%.

Mr. Colm Byrne:

Yes.

Vice Chairman:

Would that be the same internationally?

Mr. Colm Byrne:

Internationally, it is quite mixed. I cannot give the data offhand for individual states but we can get that information for the committee. Part of the challenge is transparency and how the information is presented by donor states. Some countries include loss and damage under the banner of ODA and some include it separately. It is not always possible to discern-----

Vice Chairman:

Is Mr. Byrne saying it should be separate, because the implications of not living up to that commitment led to loss and damage in many cases?

Mr. Colm Byrne:

If we do not support countries in adaptation and mitigation, the consequences of climate change become more severe and the cost of loss and damage becomes higher.

Ms R?iseal N? Ch?illeachair:

To add to what Mr. Byrne and Mr. Crowley said, Concern has been in Somalia since 1992. The 2011 famine killed over 260,000 people. As Mr. Crowley outlined, it has now been two and a half years without rain. That is not just in Somalia but in the wider region, including parts of Ethiopia. It is good to have the ambassador from Kenya here today as parts of Kenya are also very badly affected. South Sudan is experiencing extreme flooding. The action needs to be that we no longer treat this as business as usual. We can see that the climate crisis is coming. It is affecting people now. It is a game changer in terms of how people can survive and how to replace people's livelihoods. It is also coming on the back of the Covid crisis, which had already rolled back 20 years of development. The emphasis needs to be on humanitarian funding, as Mr. Byrne said, but also on the longer term bilateral investments with countries that are struggling to provide levels of social protection and rebuild livelihoods for people. We need to look right into the future. This crisis in Somalia and the wider Horn of Africa is not going to be solved in six months. A large caseload of people who were displaced in 2011 in similar circumstances due to moving away from conflict-affected areas are still displaced because it was not possible for them to go back to their land. We have to look at the package and take a long-term view. It is also important to acknowledge the commitment of the Minister of State, Deputy Brophy, to allocate €30 million to the Horn of Africa after his visit. It it very welcome. As a strong principle leading donor, Ireland can also influence other donors. As Mr. Byrne said, there are roll-backs across the board from countries that are reallocating humanitarian assistance for domestic costs. There is a requirement for commitments to both humanitarian assistance and longer term support for countries that are in desperate circumstances.

Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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I will be brief because I do not want to rehash any of the questions that have already been asked. Each member began their contribution by thanking the witnesses for their contribution because we know how urgent their task is and how valuable their time is in that regard. What would their expectations be of us as parliamentarians when coming away from this meeting? What tangible asks do they have of us, as individuals and as parties? What would they like us to communicate to our electorate? How do we assist the witnesses in taking the issue from this room and moving it outside?

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I am at a loss for words. I have been following this for quite some time. The word "heartbreaking" has been used more than once and it is. It is just shocking. We have covered the climate shocks, the political turmoil and the conflict internally. As we know, the Ukraine war is also having an impact in all kinds of ways. The numbers are absolutely staggering. When you see the images, you relate to the suffering. We often talk about first world problems. This is on a different scale altogether. Mr. Crowley said this is the worst famine in living memory, worse than 1992. I remember when Mary Robinson was out there and she broke down emotionally when she met people in the camps. You can understand why. I note from some briefing documents that the threshold may not yet have been reached at UN level for an official declaration of famine. In the name of God, what is the threshold if we are not at it already? If the UN did declare a famine, what difference would it make? Would it make a difference? I know some work has been done but it has been vetoed by some countries at UN level. The Security Council has its own issues. I am glad Ireland is doing what it is doing but we obviously need to do more and take the lead. We should bring that message back to the Government and the Ministers and I am sure they will do what they can. I will certainly be doing that and I am sure others will as well.

Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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I have a very brief question. I would like to go back to the loss and damage aspect Mr. Byrne was speaking about there. I ask him to please correct me if I am wrong but my understanding is that the EU is not actually supportive of establishing a new facility under the UNFCCC to respond to loss and damage. Instead, it favours the scaling up and strengthening of existing facilities or initiatives such as early warning systems. Can the witnesses explain what that actually means? Is there merit to establishing a new facility under the UNFCCC?

Ms Jane-Ann McKenna:

I might go to Mr. Healy from Trócaire on the non-declaration of famine. As many of us know from working in these contexts, the data are not always the first thing that are very evident in many countries. There are often gaps in this regard, particularly when in crisis situations.

Perhaps Mr. Healy will speak a little about the declaration of famine and what might change if there was one.

Mr. Paul Healy:

It will not make a blind bit of difference for many of the people involved. They are already suffering. Reference was made to Andrew Harding's horrifying story. I was standing beside him when that child died. A declaration does not make any difference to that child or that mother. It does not make any difference to the suffering of people. Months ago, I said that we are already mitigating the impact of famine. It is already here and is already expressing itself. Yes, some of the indicators have not been completely reached, but that depends on the famine review committee having the ability to measure specific indicators and having the time to do that. They only do that over a period. We are waiting for the next assessment and collection of data from the famine review committee before that famine is declared, but the crisis is now. Perhaps members will recall that 100,000 people died in 2011 before famine was declared. We certainly want to try to avoid that happening again. We want to avoid mothers and children starving in Somalia and wasting away to nothing as we wait for this amazing declaration. It is not good enough. We must do more. I really appreciate the compassion, the intelligence and the commitment shown by the members here today around pushing this and early action, rather than waiting for a famine to be declared. By the time that happens it will be too late. Yes, the declaration might mobilise things and raise a few eyebrows. When famine is declared people might say "Oh gosh, we need to do something now", but it may also be too late.

Ms Jane-Ann McKenna:

Mr. Crowley may want to add to that.

Mr. Dominic Crowley:

I want to come back to Deputy Stanton's specific question around the technical pitch. When we talk about famine we talk about IPC, which is the integrated food insecurity phase classification. This system was created a few years ago to try to get us past the argument of whether this is a famine or is not a famine. The problem is that this is extremely conservative in its estimates and, as Mr. Healy has noted, is that it measures things retrospectively. By the time a famine is identified it is already well under way. The specific challenge, generally speaking, in proving IPC level 5 is to identify the retrospective mortality data. One is trying to look backwards and trying to assess how many children have died in the previous period relative to a nominal baseline of child mortality. That is extremely difficult, not least because, as Mr. Healy has said, when one sees patterns of distress migration, which is when people try to move from one area to another in search of food, that is when one sees the highest rate of deaths. It is then almost impossible to identify the graves subsequently. At the moment in Somalia, the World Health Organization is trying to look at that retrospective mortality data, but whether it will come up with accurate information, and whether the information it comes up with will be sufficient to meet the threshold, is very questionable. I 100% agree with Mr. Healy in saying that this is totally academic. We should have been responding months ago on the understanding that there is a famine, irrespective of what the technical definition says.

Ms Jane-Ann McKenna:

I will hand over to Mr. Byrne to clarify some of those points regarding the loss and damage initiative.

Mr. Colm Byrne:

I reiterate what Mr. Healy and Mr. Crowley said. We have seen multiple red flags over the past 18 months. To wait for a declaration of famine is not really acceptable. It is to imply that people should suffer but that there is a certain level of suffering at which we suddenly draw a red line and say "This is enough".

On the resistance to loss and damage, I must say that it is the EU, the US, and Australia and others. Part of the resistance is a refusal to acknowledge the historic accountability and the risk of litigation. The establishment of a loss-and-damage fund in some ways would replace that. It is about trust in many ways. Ultimately, however, it is about accountability.

The question was asked about what parliamentarians can do. It is about telling the story, keeping this visible, and keeping it on the agenda of Government. I do not just mean within the Oireachtas; I also mean within the communities where we live and to understand the implications of our own individual and collective responsibility for climate change and acknowledging that while we may have the luxuries we have here, there are many people in other parts of the world who do not have the buffer against the sorts of climatic implications we are seeing right now. There is also the opportunity to impress upon parliamentarians in other countries. This is where we talk about Ireland being first in providing that progressive leadership. The opportunity then is to provide that on the international stage and encourage other member states and parliamentarians elsewhere to make similar decisions.

I apologise that I misunderstood the Vice Chairman's previous question on the climate finance and the €100 billion element. Recent research by Oxfam suggests that the amount being paid is only about one quarter. It is very hard to really understand the numbers clearly because of the way in which they are presented and the formal reporting mechanisms.

Vice Chairman:

I thank all of our guests for their presentations. Deputy Stanton brought us back to Mary Robinson's visit to the region in the early 1990s and the huge impact that famine had, not only here but it also had a chilling effect across the world. Thankfully it led to greater help and assistance being afforded. When we consider the difficulties we as a nation have had in recent years in responding to and rebounding from Covid as a people, as a country and as an economy. When we think of the mitigating measures we had to take in the recent budget in order to respond to the issues arising out of supply chains being affected by Covid and by the war in Ukraine, and the impact this is having on the cost of living and when we consider that we can do that to the tune of €11 billion and not borrow a cent to do so, we realise that as badly off as we think we are, how very much well-off we are when compared with the terrible difficulties and tragedies experienced by the people to whom our guests refer.

As a committee comprising members from all parties and none and representative of the people who give us the privilege of being here as Members of the Houses, we have a duty. Our guests are right to say that we have an obligation to impress upon Government to acknowledge the commitment it has made, to acknowledge the increases there have been, and to acknowledge - following the visit on behalf of the Government by the Minister of State, Deputy Brophy - the announcement of an immediate €30 million put aside for that region. We must also acknowledge, with regard to climate financing and the €95 million against €225 million, that this compares far more advantageously than the 25% across the international community. That is not to say that when one makes a commitment one should not stand by it: one should not make commitments unless one has the capacity to do so. Our job will be to impress upon Government the need to be expedient in relation to the commitment it has made as a Government: to use its influence in the fora to which it is party, both within the EU, within the UN and within the Security Council and to ensure that our Government's representation at COP27 has at the top of its agenda issues relating to climate finance and loss and damage, as you have alluded to. We will do our utmost to do that expediently ourselves, and to immediately contact Government to relay the shock and horror that is obvious in the voices of the responses and sentiment of those members that are here, in the hope that our people as a whole recognise that no matter how difficult things may seem, it is a far cry from the presentations that have been given to us on behalf of those you wish to support here today. I thank all of the witnesses again for their honesty, their brevity and the detail relating to difficult news that they had to convey. We will ensure that we will live up to the responsibilities that have been charged to us in relation to our commitments.

Ms Jane-Ann McKenna:

On behalf of all of the organisations that are members of the Dóchas, I express my sincere thanks to this committee. With members' support championing these issues, it is critical to us getting parliamentarians on board, getting the Government on board, and really helping us to support people in crisis. I thank the committee for its support.