John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I will begin by offering my condolences to the people of Türkiye and Syria in what has been an horrific eight days. More than 35,000 people have been killed in both countries. I offer my condolences also to GOAL, which has lost 27 of its members, and there may still be some people missing also. Again, I offer my condolences. It is extraordinary that seven survivors have been pulled from the rubble today in different parts of Türkiye. It is eight days on and people are still being rescued. This highlights the need for a huge effort from the international community to get as much humanitarian assistance and rescue assistance into both countries. Unfortunately, it is a glimmer of light that is quickly going out.

I welcome the funding of the initial €2 million that was given. It is now up to €10 million and I welcome that. I listened to the Minister of State, Deputy Sean Fleming, in an interview last week. The Minister of State said that the Department needs to be cautious about spending all the money straight away. If a request came in from other organisations additional funding would be granted. I welcome the fact that the additional €8 million has been granted. The Minister of State said there was a pot of €10 million there in total. Obviously, that had to get the Department through the rest of the year if there were any similar events like that. I just have a concern about that. Is the pot now spent? Would there be additional money if there are other major events such as this? I hope there is more money because, unfortunately, there may be other tragedies over the course of the year and there must be funding for those also.

On the €10 million in funding that has been given to the organisations, some concerns have been expressed around some of the aid getting into parts of Syria. I am aware that some changes have been made with two additional cross-border points being approved to open up, which has to be welcomed. There are huge challenges especially in Syria with the rebel-held areas and Government-held areas. I have heard some people talking about the impact that sanctions are having on some of that humanitarian aid getting into some areas, and particularly Government-held areas in Syria. I believe that some changes have been made there and that the US has loosened up on some of those sanctions to allow some of the humanitarian aid to get in. Is Irish humanitarian aid getting into some of those Government-held areas in Syria where there is a critical need for those supplies? This applies also to the situation in some of those rebel-held areas such as Idlib.

I welcome the increase in budget 2023 for the overseas development aid, ODA, fund. What is the Government's approach? There is a commitment going back to 1970 by the UN General Assembly for countries to reach 0.7% of gross national income, GNI, but unfortunately we seem to be getting further and further away from that objective, despite there being a commitment by the Government to achieve that by 2030. I have looked at the graph contained there and see that it is now at 0.3%. That is fairly static because last year it was 0.31% and the year before that it was 0.32%. It has more or less flatlined since 2015. If we look back to 2009, however, we were actually closer to achieving that target when we were at 0.59% of GNI. Was that the Tánaiste in 2009?