Ms Siobhan Curran:

There is a lot of opportunity ahead with the loss and damage fund. We know it is a landmark decision and something that has been fought for over the past 30 years. The decision made at COP was to establish the fund. In terms of the political commitment and decision what now has to be decided is how the fund will work and the modalities around it. There is a transitional committee that will do that. Ireland has a role to play, potentially as a member of the committee, or certainly as a shaping member. We hope that Ireland will be a member of the committee and we will be pushing Ireland to ensure there are a number of principles embedded in the working of the committee. One will be around equity and that will be key. We really need to see a fund rooted in principles of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. This means that the biggest historical polluters will pay into the fund. We want to see principles of equity and of course accessibility. This offers an opportunity to create a fund that is accessible to communities on the ground. The Green Climate Fund is one example of a current fund that has been quite bureaucratic and quite hard to access for smallhold farmers and the people who most need to access it. We can take the learning from that and apply it to the loss and damage fund. With Ireland, as the Senator has made the point, we also need to ensure that all the money going to this is additional. A lot of our climate finance at the moment is channelled through official development assistance, ODA. While that is not bad in and of itself, we have to make sure there is transparency and accountability around it. For the loss and damage fund we need to make sure this is all additional money. I will ask Mr. Fitzpatrick to continue