Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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We have received apologies from Senators O'Loughlin and Seery Kearney. The purpose of today's meeting is to discuss international co-operation, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. On behalf of the committee, I extend a warm welcome to our guests from Christian Blind Mission, CBM, Global, Mr. Dualta Roughneen - I hope I have pronounced that correctly - CEO, and Mr. Mahbub Kabbir, advocacy manager. From Irish Aid, I welcome Mr. Michael Gaffey, director general. From the Department of Foreign Affairs, I welcome Mr. Anderson Finlay, first secretary, human rights unit, political division, and Dr. Sarah Hunt. From the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, I welcome Ms Fiona McManus, assistant principal, and Mr. Niall McLoughlin, principal officer, air quality, EU and international policy and sustainable development goals, SDGs, division.

Before we begin, witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against a person or entity in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be damaging to the good name of a person or entity. Therefore, if witnesses' statements are potentially defamatory and they are asked to discontinue their remarks, it is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that we should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. Members must also be within the precincts of Leinster House if they are participating remotely.

I invite Mr. Roughneen to make his opening statement.

Mr. Dualta Roughneen:

I am pleased and grateful to be given the opportunity to speak to the committee as CEO of Christian Blind Mission Ireland. I thank the Chair, committee members and colleagues who are here to discuss an issue close to the mission of CBM Ireland, a disability-focused organisation working in international development. For this reason, Article 32 of the UNCRPD, which focuses on international co-operation, points the signatories to the convention towards the same mission as we have and puts commitments to disability rights beyond the local here in Ireland.

Article 32 directs international co-operation to be inclusive of persons with disabilities but this article should not be read in isolation from the rest of the CRPD. The CRPD provides a substantive articulation that disability rights are human rights but also what these rights entail. International co-operation has to be reflective of the CRPD in its totality in order to give disability the meaningful attention it deserves. This reflection is also necessary as Ireland recommits to the global aims of the sustainable development goals, where the achievements in Ireland far outpace progress across much of the world. It should be of concern to all that while Ireland is achieving 80% of the SDGs on our soil, globally only 15% of the targets are on track.

The role played by the Irish diplomatic team at the UN in brokering the recent political declaration on sustainable development, which aims to re-energise global commitments, is commendable. We congratulated An Tánaiste on Ireland’s work in ensuring that the declaration explicitly stated that “persons with disabilities actively participate in and equally benefit from sustainable development efforts”. However, I know from my 20 years working in development how easy it is to use the right words while people with disabilities remain overlooked, often forgotten. I can only look back at my own work now and realise how little consideration I and some of the organisations I worked for, as well as the wider international community, gave to the needs and specific rights of people with disabilities. I did not know what I did not know. Often, the need to do something or do a lot, and quickly, in humanitarian action means not finding the necessary time to find, understand and respond to the specific needs of persons with disability, which results in them being excluded, even with the best of intentions.

Ireland’s commitments under the SDGs, combined with Article 32, require that our international development commitments be inclusive of persons with disabilities. Yet, despite Ireland’s diplomatic efforts globally, A Better World, our policy for international development, only mentions disabilities three times. In each of those references it is simply as part of a list of different groups to be included. It is important that people with disabilities are mentioned – otherwise they will be certainly overlooked – yet the references are cursory.

People with disabilities comprise 16% of the global population, or approximately 1.3 billion people worldwide, and 80% of those live in the developing world. That is 1 billion people with the same rights as everyone but specific and differentiated needs to be able to achieve those rights. It is 1 billion people who are treated as a single and homogeneous group, among a list of many other groups. People with disabilities are not homogeneous nor can they be a mere appendix. Different disabilities require different supports, as we in Ireland know. People with disabilities will also benefit from sustainable development through economic progress and social improvement, but there will be millions who will miss out while they wait for the rising tide to raise all boats. Some will unfortunately drown while the tide rises, without dedicated and targeted investment in their inclusion in international co-operation.

There are 17 sustainable development goals. These have 169 targets, yet only seven of these specifically address disability inclusion. The SDGs have 231 indicators, yet only ten of these require disability data disaggregation and only two of them have any available data to disaggregate. Considering the pre-existing challenges that people with disabilities face relative to the majority of the population, considering they form a large minority of the population and considering the complexities and differential challenges people with different types of disabilities encounter, they remain almost invisible when looking at progress on achieving the SDGs. In our SDG commitments, we must look beyond the brief articulation of what disability inclusion means under Article 32, and look to the CRPD as a whole.

The 1 billion people with disabilities need more than to be referenced as a homogeneous group, one group among many, not to be forgotten, but require a positive, dedicated strategy for their inclusion in international development.

A deaf person is not the same as a blind person, who is not the same as someone with a psychosocial disability, who is not the same as someone who has a physical disability. Each person needs to access education which is different; to enjoy decent work which is different; and to live in and enjoy sustainable cities which is different. This means moving beyond the minimalist approach taken in A Better World and the essentially minimal commitments to measuring progress under the SDG for people with disabilities to something much more holistic and focused.

Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Roughneen very much and call on Mr. Gaffey to give his opening remarks.

Mr. Michael Gaffey:

I thank the Cathaoirleach and members of the committee and I very much welcome the opportunity to meet with them. As Mr. Roughneen has just said, an estimated 15% to 16% of the world’s population lives with disability and some 80% of this number live in developing countries and in areas with high risks of natural disasters, armed conflicts and emergencies. The proportion of people living below the poverty line is higher amongst people with disabilities than people without disabilities and is, in fact, double in some countries. Poverty and conflict impact people with disabilities to a greater degree than persons without a disability. Disability significantly limits a person's agency to participate in society and this is particularly the case in low income settings.

As the committee is aware, Ireland ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, in March 2018, as a core element of our commitment to promoting and protecting the human rights of persons with disabilities. Promoting and protecting human rights is a key foreign policy priority for Ireland and, therefore, our commitment to the convention extends beyond our domestic commitment to all of our international engagement including championing the rights of persons with disabilities in international development cooperation.

Articles 11 and 32 of the convention are specific references to development co-operation and humanitarian action. We recognise, however, that all articles of the convention are relevant for disability inclusion in development co-operation and humanitarian action. Disability inclusion is not an optional extra. Sustainable Development Goals and Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted in 2015, is focused on commitments to end poverty, reduce inequality and leave no one behind. The SDGs cannot be achieved in full without including people with disabilities. The SDGs relating to education, growth and employment, inequality, accessibility of human settlements, as well as data collection and monitoring of the implementation of the goals, all specifically require attention to disability. Prioritising people with disabilities is central to delivery on Ireland’s pledge to reach the "‘furthest behind first", a core principle of Ireland’s international development policy, A Better World. A Better World specifically notes a “particular focus on improved outcomes for women and girls, minorities and the inclusion of people with disabilities”. The core principle of reaching the "furthest behind first" is Ireland’s response to the promise of the SDGs to leave no one behind but this focus is not new to us. The ethos of reaching those most marginalised and poorest is embedded in our aid programme since its foundation just 50 years ago.

Our policy priorities and our current pledge to reach the furthest behind are informed by evidence and learning that comes from our international engagements and experience. Probably the most important source for us is our direct engagement with the communities and people we support in partnerships through our embassy network in Sub-Saharan Africa and also in Vietnam. We know first-hand how people with disabilities are excluded from development assistance and have less access to basic services.

I accompanied the Tánaiste on his visit in July to Mozambique, home to one of Ireland’s bilateral development programmes; in fact, it is our second largest bilateral development programme. We saw the slow but steady progress being made to address poverty in all its dimensions there. We also got a better understanding of the challenges of marginalisation and exclusion. Our embassy teams are continuously exploring and testing initiatives to address this challenge. A good example to illustrate this is in the context of the large UN-led humanitarian assistance operation to help more than 1 million displaced persons from the Cabo Delgado conflict in the north of Mozambique. Through our embassy in Mozambique, Ireland is funding a project to help UN agencies identify and more accurately prioritise assistance to the most vulnerable among the displaced population. This includes a specific focus on persons with disabilities who are receiving significantly less benefit from the humanitarian response. We believe that a catalytic initiative like this, in the margins of a large humanitarian operation, is exactly the type of measure we aim and need to do more of.

We also know that the participation of people with disabilities is an important and necessary requirement for economic and social life and to prosper. It is very clear to us that taking a rights-based approach to disability inclusion and confronting and overcoming the marginalisation of people with disabilities has a transformative effect on society as a whole. Women with disabilities face higher personal risk and are twice as likely to experience gender-based violence compared to their peers without disabilities. Only around 20% of women with disabilities in low-income countries are employed compared with 58% of men with disabilities. Gender equality is and has been for many years a core priority for Ireland’s international development co-operation. Ensuring we have a gendered approach to our disability inclusion work is critical.

Recently, the Department of Foreign Affairs undertook a mapping of all programmes and projects that support disability inclusive development. The aim was to understand fully the extent of what we are doing across the programme on disability and to identify gaps and improve our focus. The mapping was based on the disability inclusion tracking tool developed by the OECD development assistance committee that sets standards for the quality of international development co-operation spending, known as ODA.

The mapping demonstrated that disability inclusion work is evident across Ireland’s programme in more than 51 countries, channelled mostly through UN agencies and NGOs. It illustrated examples of good practice. For instance, in social protection programmes that we support in Tanzania and Malawi, Ireland advocates for and supports measures to ensure that provision of these social protection services targets people with disabilities. In Vietnam, our embassy supports a Vietnamese NGO to increase disabled persons’ participation in income generating and socioeconomic projects. In Ethiopia, our embassy has a partnership with the Ethiopian Centre for Disability and Development, contributing to disability mainstreaming in two states. In Tanzania, Ireland has supported the Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation in Tanzania centre for many years. Our support enables provision of specialised surgical and rehabilitation services for people with disabilities and, in fact, 6% of the centre’s staff are themselves living with disabilities.

More generally, the mapping exercise found that in 2021, 24% of Ireland’s ODA was disability-inclusive. We are currently exploring how we increase this percentage, which is important work. Our starting point is to improve our monitoring systems and to include systematic use of this OECD tracking instrument. We are currently rolling out guidance and training to our teams to appraise and improve all programmes for disability inclusion. For this, we will develop guidance on a more standardised use of monitoring tools. More accurately measuring disability inclusion in our programme is critical to allow us to identify gaps and opportunities. In this way we can effectively challenge ourselves and our partners, including UN agencies and NGOs, to redouble efforts to achieve the commitments we make on disability inclusion.

Ireland’s international development policy, A Better World, reaffirms the commitment to improving our disability inclusion work and we are now acting on that. Adopting a more deliberate and system-wide approach using the OECD methodology will allow us to consolidate and strengthen our impact. This is the best internationally recognised means to enhance disability inclusion in humanitarian action and development co-operation and it is the means through which we will continue to deliver on our own policy commitments, and through that, on UNCRPD, and make a meaningful contribution to Agenda 2030. I thank the Cathaoirleach very much.

Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Gaffey and call Mr. McLoughlin to make his opening statement.

Mr. Niall McLoughlin:

I thank the Cathaoirleach and I also thank the committee for the invitation to meet with the committee to discuss the sustainable development goal’s and the implementation of the UNCRPD. At the recent SDG summit 2023 in New York, political leaders reaffirmed their shared commitment to “end poverty and hunger everywhere, combat inequalities within and among countries and build peaceful societies that leave no one behind.” Ireland played a key role in co-facilitating the declaration with Qatar. The Taoiseach stressed in his statement that the text must become “more than a piece of paper” and reaffirmed Ireland’s commitment to the 2030 agenda achievement of the goals and ensuring that the world’s poorest and most vulnerable are not forgotten or left behind.

Agenda 2030 recognises persons with disabilities as one of the vulnerable groups at risk of being left behind. While all SDGs and targets are applicable to persons with disabilities, there are seven explicit references to persons with disabilities within SDG targets, including quality education, decent work and economic growth, reduced inequalities, sustainable cities and communities, and partnerships for the goals.

While persons with disabilities are included under the definition of vulnerable persons, it is recognised that disabled persons are not inherently vulnerable but can become vulnerable through social and environmental barriers. Removing such barriers in line with the UNCRPD is key to advancing the SDGs and achieving the UN sustainable development agenda by 2030. Given the global objective of Agenda 2030, the agenda recognises that a global partnership and spirit of global solidarity with people in vulnerable situations are required to ensure its implementation. As we just heard, Ireland’s policy for international co-operation commits to reaching the furthest behind first in our efforts to support the achievement of the SDGs in developing countries, particularly to tackle extreme poverty and inequality.

To achieve a disability-inclusive society, it is important that the SDGs are implemented in line with the UNCRPD and that they work in tandem. Ireland’s national implementation plan includes the strategic objective to further incorporate the principle of "leave no one behind" into Ireland’s Agenda 2030 implementation and reporting mechanisms. The implementation plan commits to holding three hybrid national stakeholder forums each year. An SDG national stakeholder forum committee is convened annually, and its role includes ensuring the forums adapt a whole-of-society approach, ensuring increased awareness of the SDGs across society and the use of accessible communication. The UNCRPD outlines an obligation on the Government to engage with disabled people through their representative organisations. Our 2023 forum committee included a disabled persons' organisation, DPO representative, and the implementation plan emphasises the importance of engagement with DPOs. We will shortly be requesting expressions of interest from those who wish to participate on the committee for 2024.

To summarise, the committee continues to work to ensure that plain English is used in all communications and reports; that forums are hybrid events allowing access to all who wish to attend; and that sign language interpreters are present for all in-person and online communications. It also ensures that live captioning is used at all forums for our online audience; that presentations and presentation materials are made available on request in advance of all events; that an accessibility and inclusion officer is present at events; that event venues have full wheelchair access and clear facility signage is used; and that a quiet room is available to all attendants.

The January 2023 forum was specifically dedicated to defining what "leave no one behind" means in an Irish context. The 400 stakeholders who attended the forum agreed on the following definition to represent the Irish perspective of "leave no one behind":

An inclusive and empathetic society that empowers everyone to engage with and be represented in decision-making, accelerating dignity, and enabling equal opportunities and equitable outcomes.

This definition will enable us to better ensure we were adapting the SDGs to meet national needs.

The UN high-level political forum convenes in July of each year. This year, the ministerial segment was attended by the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, who presented Ireland’s second voluntary national review, VNR. The VNR reflects Ireland’s strong economic recovery following the Covid-19 pandemic and our efforts to build back better, guided by the SDGs and Agenda 2030. It also provided an accessible and inclusive space for our national network of stakeholders to review Ireland’s progress, offering their feedback and input on how they perceive Ireland is doing on progressing the SDGs. Where progress has been made, this has been acknowledged but where work remains to be done, this has also been called out.

The National Disability Authority, NDA, contributed a chapter to our VNR, along with national stakeholder groups from a variety of sectors. The NDA was asked to comment on Ireland’s progress, offering feedback and input on how it perceives us to be doing in progressing the SDGs. Contributed chapters were completed on the principle of open drafting.

This chapter, together with the January SDG national stakeholder forum, represents the beginning of the conversation on "leave no one behind", and not the end. The shared understandings and messages developed as part of the national stakeholder forum will be used to inform the development of guidance on this principle, which will be incorporated as an overarching element to progress the national implementation plan. In order to further ensure that work across government considers the needs of persons with disabilities and promotes their participation, it is intended to incorporate guidance in the SDG training course and toolkits for civil servants and local authorities. It is currently under development.

As we enter the fourth year of the decade of action for the SDGs, it is important that we realise the opportunities that Agenda 2030 offers us to create a better, more just society, and that the SDGs are implemented in line with the UNCRPD to ensure we leave no one behind.

Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. McLoughlin. Now we will go to our first committee member, Deputy Ellis.

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank everyone for their presentations. I was thinking about CBM Ireland there. On the SDGs, the achievements in Ireland far outpace progress across much of the world. It should be a concern for all that while Ireland is achieving 80% of the SDGs on our own soil, globally only 15% of the targets are on track. What are the main reasons only 15% of the SDG targets are being met? What developed countries are lagging behind in helping to implement these targets on a global basis?

I note the proportion of women with disabilities who are employed in general. The figure for women is something around 20% and for men is around 58%. How is that being addressed? I assume there are probably other reasons women with disabilities are faring much worse. It could be due to religious reasons or different things. Is there a guide on that, and do we have any idea why that is?

On the Department of Foreign Affairs, I was looking at the situations in conflict zones, and in particular Ukraine. It is clear that those with disabilities in Ukraine are said to be facing life-threatening barriers such as a lack of accessible shelter, a lack of inclusive evacuation plans and humanitarian corridors, and a lack of access to information on healthcare. These problems are said to be more acute when it comes to children and those in residential institutions. All have faced numerous challenges since the start of the war, and recently we have seen a further situation developing, and another war. Access to education has also been severely curtailed for children with disabilities, especially those who have been internally displaced. Many institutions have also ended up in occupied territories and have been damaged or destroyed. How is development aid being used to support these people in these circumstances? The witnesses might give us some idea.

The European disabilities fund has campaigned for a ban on the construction and renovation of residential institutions in favour of a transition to community-based care in Ukraine. That is what we have seen here a lot. We are trying to get people mixed into the community as opposed to having residential institutions. Is this a realistic option in Ukraine, considering the complications a full-scale war would have in trying to integrate people with disabilities into a community setting, when so many communities have been displaced, or have had their buildings and infrastructure destroyed? I wonder how difficult those sorts of goals are.

I want to mention that as the witnesses know, Ireland has not fully signed up to the UNCRPD, and we have not ratified the optional protocol. We are talking about 2030, so has this a bearing on any of the targets?

Mr. Michael Gaffey:

I will take this, and I know Mr. Roughneen will want to come in too. I thank the Deputy. He mentioned the stunning statistic that almost halfway through the period to 2030, only 15% of the targets for the SDGs have been reached globally. That is a global failing. I do not think we can say that one country has done well and another has not, except nationally. Internationally however, since 2019, the number of people in poverty and suffering from hunger has been going back in the wrong direction. That is a huge challenge. It has been accentuated since by the Covid-19 pandemic; by the impact of conflict, including the war in Ukraine; by the interlocking crises we are facing, which are humanitarian, developmental and political; and overall, by the existential threat of climate change. In all of that, inevitably, people suffering and living with disabilities are somehow at the bottom of the pile.

If we look at the statistics, I think they are suffering more than others. The SDG summit in September was very much focused on reinvigorating the international community's response. However, a lot more needs to be done in terms of national commitments to official development assistance and on the reform of the international financial architecture to help move the funding needed for the ambitious SDGs to be achieved.

It is a huge international challenge. It involves the global community, as the UN Secretary General has recognised. He said that the political declaration, which Ireland helped negotiate, is a rescue plan for the SDGs. The challenge now is to take that rescue plan and act on it.

The SDGs and Agenda 2030 really highlight inequality of every type in the world, be it between women and men or disabled and non-disabled people. The big challenge is to end inequality in all its dimensions because it is the main source of poverty. When we look at the statistics for employment for women with disability, we have to target this area specifically. We cannot assume a supposed rising tide will lift all boats.

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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We have similar figures here, perhaps not quite as bad, but not far off.

Mr. Michael Gaffey:

We have put gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls at the heart of our development programme. We have recognised that there is no way the SDGs can be achieved without such empowerment. We also have to ensure we focus on disabled women in the programme. We have programmes that specifically target the employment of women. We announced one with the Irish League of Credit Unions and the International Fund for Agricultural Development during the UN General Assembly to help women in the developing world get businesses started. It is going to need a lot of targeted action.

One of the most difficult issues is how to act in conflict zones. It is an enormous challenge to be able to do development work while providing immediate humanitarian assistance. In recent years we have learned that we have to integrate our work much more effectively. In the past, humanitarian response and long-term development work were somehow separate. The challenge now is to be more integrated in doing both at the same time, up to a point.

Ukraine is a very good example of this. The situation in Ukraine regarding refugees is disastrous. There are 95,000 Ukrainian refugees in Ireland alone. Within Ukraine a huge number of people have been displaced and made refugees. This affects everything, from their health to their employment and, once again, disabled people often end up at the bottom of the pile. We are working specifically on marginalised communities through the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Population Fund and the World Health Organization to try to reach the most marginalised, but it is tough and difficult work.

Institutionalisation was mentioned and it is a big issue. It has been a big issue particularly in Ukraine and other areas of eastern Europe. There is a real need to work to de-institutionalise. However, it is more difficult in some settings than in others. In settings where populations are displaced and people become refugees and internally displaced persons, it is hugely difficult. Our challenge in humanitarian action is to try to ensure there is a specific focus on disabled people. We have a lot more to do. Ten years ago, in our development and humanitarian work, Ireland was pretty far behind in understanding. As Mr. Roughneen would say, disabled people were invisible. We are making progress on that.

We are among one of the first countries in the OECD to adopt the organisation's new disability policy marker, which sounds a bit technical but it enables us to identify what needs to be done and how we can do things better. It also enables us to measure, in a way we could never do in the past, what our focus on disabled people and disability inclusion is. If I had been asked these questions ten years ago, I would have been put to the pin of my collar to talk about where we were working on disability. I would have been able to say we were working with the International Labour Organization in Vietnam on disability but I probably would not have been able to say much more. We have a much more integrated approach now, but we recognise we have a lot more to do and that, if we are to apply this principle we are working on, of reaching the furthest behind first, we need to act differently. That is what we are designing and trying to do at the moment.

Mr. Dualta Roughneen:

I echo much of what Mr. Gaffey has said. There are a couple of areas I would challenge but I will first go back to a couple of the questions that were asked.

Why are only 15% of the targets are being met globally? Conflict is one of the reasons. Before I came in to the meeting, I was talking about when I started working in west Africa 15 years ago, the region was calm, peaceful and quiet. The only conflict people were talking about was the civil war in Côte d'Ivoire. Since then, there have been civil wars in Nigeria and Cameroon. There are conflicts in Burkina Faso, which is destroying the country, in Niger and in Mali. Only a few weeks ago there was a coup in Niger. We have seen that whole region disintegrate over time. It is almost impossible to make progress towards things like the SDGs when this happens. Similarly, in other regions of sub-Saharan Africa, in the east and southern regions, instability in those countries pushes everything back.

There is often the assumption that overseas aid can solve all these problems or bring everything forward to achieve the SDGs. Overseas aid is still only a small portion of the funding countries spend themselves on their own development. Looking at Ireland, we see some of the challenges and we are not achieving all of the SDGs. The problem is that when there is such a small resource base in many of the countries we work in in international co-operation, investing in different areas is always a challenge. The tax base is very small, there are many different demands on it and the needs are very large. The contribution from Ireland and other developed countries is hugely important.

If it is asked who the laggards are to an extent, I would not say who are the laggards. I would point to some of the countries that have achieved the figure of 0.7% for a number of years in their commitment to overseas aid. Some had achieved it and have dropped back. FCDO UK Aid Direct has pulled back on the 0.7% commitment. Ireland still has a long way to go to achieve the figure of 0.7%. These are financial contributions to assist overseas aid and achieve the sustainable development goals.

Regarding women with disabilities and talking about inequality, ending inequality is one way of looking at it, but ultimately, to end inequality we have to be able to bring people up as well, so we need to have targeted strategies. If we are looking at the issue of women with disabilities, we need a targeted strategy around disability in the first place, and this can be further honed when we look at the issues of why women with disabilities are not in the workplace or why there are fewer of them in the workplace. Some of this is also for societal and cultural reasons and the type of employment available in those countries. Much of the employment is day-to-day employment and subsistence living. For many people long-term careers are not even an option. People work to live. The work is very physical as well, and that can have an effect on whether people with disabilities are able to access that work.

There are a huge number of challenges which have been exacerbated, to an extent, not by Covid but by the policies that were put in place during the Covid pandemic. For example, for a person in Niger who needs to be out working and who needs a busy marketplace to work, if there are restrictions on movement where a population cannot go to that person's stall he or she has set up, that person cannot earn a living and that means he or she cannot eat that day. All of those things have a knock-on effect, and much more so than we could ever really appreciate in Ireland. We have such a high standard of living in general here in Ireland, and then there is the challenge of being a person with a disability in Burkina Faso, for example, when you are surrounded by conflict and war and there is nowhere to go.

That leads us to the challenge of institutionalisation. There is an issue around institutionalisation and disability, but then how do you de-institutionalise it? It takes a long time and is very difficult.

If you want to close institutions where people with disabilities are homed, where do they go? What do they do? The families do not have the resources to support them. There are not systems in place to provide them with the necessary rehabilitation. The school systems are often very weak as well. We can work to ensure children with disabilities can access schools but those schools need to be able to support them. It is not as easy as saying we can bring children with disabilities into schools and all will be fine. It can have very difficult knock-on effects when that is done without the proper training for teachers in place and the proper supports around the curriculum. How can a blind person access textbooks that do not have Braille, for example? The government budget cannot give the schools the necessary budget to buy those so parents who are already struggling to make ends meet need to get Braille schoolbooks for their children that cost two, three or four times as much as regular schoolbooks. We are having a lot of those challenges.

The Deputy mentioned the European Disability Forum. It is an organisation we work with. One of the priorities for ourselves is working with organisations of people with disabilities. We sometimes think that as NGOs or international NGOs we have the solutions to the problems but it is people with disabilities and the organisations they have set up and run that do. They often have much better ideas of what the solutions are but the problem is that they are very under-resourced. Even here in Ireland, they are significantly under-resourced but it is the same if you go and work overseas. We talk to organisations for people with disabilities and they say people are not willing to resource them. Why not? It is often because of the compliance requirements that come with overseas aid. It is understandable. Irish Aid is responsible to the Comptroller and Auditor General in Ireland and the European Union is responsible to the European Anti-Fraud Office, OLAF, for internal audit. Those bodies want to make sure the money is spent properly. Small community groups of people with disabilities do not have the systems and processes that are expected to be in place to manage funds for international co-operation. That has a huge knock-on effect on how we can bring people with disabilities into looking after their own development.

The last point I wanted to make is on the UNCRPD. The optional protocol is not an obstacle to addressing Article 32. While the SDGs are somewhat voluntary and governments are committing to them, the UNCRPD is something Ireland has ratified. That means it has ratified Article 32, which means we need to approach international co-operation and inclusion of people with disabilities in line with convention and that puts huge responsibility on Ireland. I commend what Mr. Gaffey said about starting to look at Irish Aid's work through a disability lens and trying to understand what Irish Aid is doing and how the money is being spent.

I was very surprised because I have not seen the outcome for the disability marker Mr. Gaffey mentioned and 24% of funding being disability inclusive. I would love to be able to delve into that more and see what that actually means. We know the OECD DAC markers are blunt instruments. It is really about getting inside them to see, for example, if someone says money is being spent and it is disability inclusive, what that means. A whole range of work needs to be done to ensure communities are more inclusive but also still making sure we are able to deliver those programmes that respond to the needs that people with disabilities have right now. It is a case of getting a balance between the medicalised approach to disability and also the changing society and attitudes towards people with disabilities.

Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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I thank the witnesses very much for coming in and presenting, and to Mr. McLoughlin who is on the video. It is such an interesting conversation to get the international world view of what is happening and how lucky we are in this country in lots of ways. The thing I most wanted to ask is with regard to the SDGs. They are something everybody has committed to but we have failed to reach targets and we are running against time. We have now put a rescue plan in place. I wanted to ask about having legislation to back it up so we can actually force people to meet targets. For instance, should we be adapting the protocol to give those rights to people with disabilities? We have lovely sayings like "leave no one behind" and "furthest behind first" and that type of thing. They are great words but are they powerful in the sense that this is really happening? Is it happening here in this country? Is it happening on foot of our budget yesterday? That is why I say these are all grand words. I would like to get the witnesses' reaction to that because I am getting tired of the words and I am just wondering if we need a new approach at this stage to force people to actually take on the responsibility to give rights to people who need them.

Mr. Dualta Roughneen:

It is a difficult question. We already have the UNCRPD. It is ratified and embedded in legislation. The responsibilities are there. Sometimes looking overseas and at the SDGs, countries can commit financially and make financial commitments, especially for overseas aid. They need to start looking to really get towards that 0.7% target but ultimately it is still a small portion. It is not just finances that are needed. We have to highlight the different situations different countries are in. Looking at it with a realistic lens, many of them are not going to be able to achieve those SDGs because they are in the midst of conflict. How can those conflicts be resolved? People do not have the answer to that. There sometimes has to be a realistic lens as regards where we are at.

SDGs can be achieved in some countries where the situation allows but we are looking at not achieving the goals in some countries to their fullest. We cannot always aim for the highest bar. We need to look at realistic, achievable targets as well. Sometimes that means small changes and sometimes it can be significant changes as well. We should try to target what is achievable and what is necessary right now. There can be a tendency sometimes to drift towards fatalism even within the sector and in the organisations I work with. We would love to see everything achieved by 2030 but we all have to make tough decisions on what we focus on, even as an organisation. CBM Ireland cannot cover every aspect of disability. We can only work in a certain number of countries. Our financial resources and human resources are limited. We would love to have much more resources but we work within the confines of our limitations and try to make the best use of them.

I sometimes despair at the words that can be used. I think "leave no one behind" is a great aim or objective but it takes a dedicated and targeted strategy. I would say in reply to Mr. Gaffey that we would really like to see Irish Aid develop a strong, clear strategy around what working with people with disabilities means and what disability inclusion means for the organisation. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office its UK equivalent, has a dedicated strategy around disability under international co-operation. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Australia has one as well and is probably the strongest advocate for disability inclusion in international co-operation in recent years. We would love to see something similar from Irish Aid for targeted funding in that direction, not just assessing to see if funding is disability inclusive but actually making targeted and strategic decisions on disability inclusion in its work.

Mr. Michael Gaffey:

The truth is that Agenda 2030 and the sustainable development goals are not a legal instrument. The convention stands and it is but the SDGs are not. It would be great if they were and if there was true legal accountability but the world is not at a stage where we can do that. Ireland was very much involved in the negotiation of the SDGs and is now involved in the work to revive and regenerate progress on them. What we are trying to do is have a strong political and moral commitment where countries hold each other to account on the goals. Last year, there was a sense of a breach of trust between the developed and developing world, following Covid and the initial response to the war in Ukraine.

There was a sense among some developing countries that the developed countries were leaving behind the SDGs and focusing on other concerns. One of our huge priorities this year at the UN was to get that confidence back in respect of the common commitment to the goals. The difference between these goals and the earlier millennium goals is that it is a very big and complicated framework where countries have obligations both nationally and internationally. Being so complex, I suppose it would be easy to say that it is impossible to achieve that, but the truth is that we were making good progress from 2015 and we were set back by the impact of Covid. However, I would say that post Covid, poverty levels have recovered in many countries but not in the countries that were the least developed and the poorest, and in countries affected by conflict. There is a real lesson to us there, if we want to make progress, that we do have to look at the countries affected by conflict and the poorest countries if we are to regenerate overall progress on the goals.

The Deputy is right. We, and our leaders, all said the right things at the summit in the UN in September. The challenge now is to act on that. Official development aid, ODA, as Mr. Roughneen said, is only a very small portion of the financing that is required if the sustainable development goals are to be reached. There is also a need, as I said earlier, to reform the international financial architecture. There is a need to help countries generate their own domestic resources, including through taxation and otherwise. That is not to say that ODA is insignificant. It is significant financially, it is significant as a catalyst and above all, it is significant as an indication that developed countries will live up to the pledges and commitments that they have made. Ireland is making progress towards the 0.7% target. Mr. Roughneen said it is too slow. It is not really for me to say; it is more for the political system. For instance, in the UK it was decided to make it a legal obligation to have 0.7% of GNI go towards ODA. That was adhered to for a few years. The problem is that a government then decided to change that legislation and they have gone back now to a limit of 0.5%. Some countries that have reached 0.7% are now using some of that for Ukrainian refugees within their own country. What I would say about Ireland is that the Government is committed to increasing ODA steadily. We have increased Vote 27 to the Department of Foreign Affairs every year for ten years. The Department's aid budget is higher this year than it has ever been before. We have now exceeded the level in the top year before, which was 2008.

For the SDGs, the ODA and for our work here, what is really needed is political commitment and determined action on the part of those running the aid programmes to target those who are furthest behind. I would say that we, in the Department, are developing a strategy to ensure that our work is really informed by reaching the furthest behind first. There was a fear among some of us for a while that maybe we could be accused of just adopting a slogan. We are really doing strong technical work now to ensure that when we are implementing our budgets and designing our programmes and projects, there is a real tool to ensure that we do emphasise and prioritise the furthest behind first. We will be very happy to share that with everyone when we have it fully concluded.

Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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I have to go but I thank Senator Feighan and Senator McGreehan for their co-operation.

Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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It is Deputy Feighan.

Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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The former Minister of State.

Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. McLoughlin had indicated he wanted to come in.

Mr. Niall McLoughlin:

I know the Deputy has left for the Chamber. I would certainly empathise with some of his comments on the use of slogans. It is a charge that has been levelled at us as a Department previously. Similarly, the SDGs need to mean more than the wearing of the pin on our lapels. I highlight again the stakeholders forums that we had and the opportunity we had to actually listen to the lived experiences of those who represent people who have been left behind. It gives us some kind of legitimacy in using that phrase. At the January forum we had people from the Irish Refugee Council, the national autism charity, Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre, youth services and organisations for lone parents. Hearing those lived experiences, having the officials in the room and having those conversations is really valuable. They have contributed greatly to the development of Ireland's voluntary national review, VNR, which was presented in July. We were there, warts and all. We did not go there with a glossy document saying everything was great. We had very important stakeholder chapters, including the one from the NDA I highlighted earlier, which really pointed out where we need to do more in order to reach those furthest behind.

As Mr. Gaffey said, technical work is required that is more than a slogan. Certainly, strategic objective number one of our national implementation plan is to better integrate the SDGs into the work of Departments to ensure greater policy coherence in respect of sustainable development and a number of steps have been taken to progress this objective. Really importantly, and going back to the Deputy's comment about the budget yesterday, we will incorporate the SDGs into the administrative and accountability framework across government under the national implementation plan, which was agreed by the Government. The SDGs will be incorporated into the regulatory impact assessment memoranda of the Government and the budgetary process. At the moment we are carrying out research on how we can make that happen in time to inform budget 2025. It is an issue also being grappled with by our European counterparts, and we are researching best practice. In respect of the budgetary process, the well-being framework is incorporated. We are looking at how that is being put together and at the research and recommendations at the moment. It is another step we are progressing in respect of strategic objective number one and working with the OECD for greater policy coherence. What I am trying to get across is the fact that, yes, there is a slogan there, we have been informed by it, we have gone out to the international community with it, but we are also putting in place the practical, technical steps required to actually deliver on the measures required to do something about it.

Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail)
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The witnesses are very welcome to our committee meeting. I congratulate them on all the work they do because it is priceless work. It is for the most vulnerable in the most heartbreaking situations, so it is wonderful. Going back to what we are talking about this evening, it is fascinating how we transfer our goals under the UNCRPD and make sure that our moral and ethical compass here in Ireland and on this committee is transposed in other countries. Going on that, from the Department's point of view, can the Department mandate that expenditure be disability-proofed? How do we move to make sure that all Irish aid is disability-proofed? Going back to what was said there about the mapping, that 24% of Ireland's ODA is disability-inclusive, what does that look like? What is disability-inclusive, and how do we make sure that is 100%? There is a big gap there, so what does it look like now, and how do we, in the Parliament, support the Department in making sure that 100% of all ODA is disability-inclusive? Our goal on this committee is to ensure that every act of the Government is disability-inclusive. How does Ireland take that lead?

Mr. Roughneen mentioned in his speech that the Better World policy references disability three times. I will put Mr. Gaffey under pressure again.

When the policy was designed, in good faith, were DPOs engaged? Have policymakers been trained in what the UNCRPD is and what disability-proofing is? Are the people currently working in Irish Aid trained in disability equity and disability equality and indeed to create policies that are disability proofed?

We see now the world is in turmoil. I was struck by the figure that, of the 15% of the world population living with disability, 80% of those live in developing countries. That is a frightening figure. It just shows the importance of the work the witnesses do. How can we work this out? In times of conflict we go into panic mode and there is chaos. Chaos does not provide for a straight line and a fulfilling of plans. How do the Irish Government, the State the UN and Irish Aid support a framework for organisations to make sure all those supports on the ground - the peacekeepers and all the support workers - have that disability-inclusive training and make sure, even in chaos, the UNCRPD is being pushed to its utmost potential? War creates disabled people through injury and through conflict. There is a lot there, so I would like the witnesses' thoughts.

Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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Does Mr. Gaffey want to start?

Mr. Michael Gaffey:

I will, and I hope I can answer every aspect of it. This OECD policy marker is quite new and Ireland is one of the first to recognise the need to do more. That is why we have been adopting it and working on it. That is why I say we are still mapping and learning, but with a view to doing more. That is true. This morning we had a discussion in our senior management group on precisely this point about markers and how we train our people to ensure we know what we are doing in implementing our thematic priorities. We started the discussion this morning by talking about gender. We talked about prioritising the empowerment of women and girls and gender and how to do that across all programmes, projects and proposals. We have broadened that to discuss disability also. We make commitments and statements, as the Senator rightly said, but how do we ensure they actually appear as priorities in the implementation of our programme? We have developed a system whereby for every proposal for funding a programme or project, we have a complex system of appraising it. Part of that appraisal involves answering questions on disability inclusion. I will admit it is probably not as much as it could be but we are starting. We have questions on disability inclusion so that everybody designing a programme or a project has to be able to understand how it will relate to disability but also has to answer those questions or we cannot approve the programmes.

Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail)
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What are the markers for disability inclusion in the mapping?

Mr. Michael Gaffey:

In the mapping, there are different levels. They have to be answered in different levels. I can provide the Senator with the actual mapping-----

Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail)
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Yes, do. I would be really interested.

Mr. Michael Gaffey:

-----but there are different levels of the extent to which it is primarily focused on disability, whether it has a broad focus on disability and what level it is at. Obviously, what the Senator would like is that every programme would have a total focus on disability.

Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail)
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It should all be disability-proofed.

Mr. Michael Gaffey:

Exactly. We believe 24% is a start but we need to do better. We are now talking about training our people so that they understand how to make programmes more disability-inclusive and know how to design them more effectively. That includes our people in headquarters and in our missions who are implementing programmes. We also need to work with our partners in civil society whom we fund to ensure we are all working on the same basis, so that when we talk about disability inclusion, we actually have a clear base for doing it. That work is under way at the moment. At a certain point, it could be good to come back to the committee to show exactly how we are doing that. We were talking today about how to roll it out further. We can do that.

However, as the Senator also noted, working in conflict hugely accentuates the difficulties. We are used to implementing development programmes traditionally in poor and difficult areas, but if conflict, hunger and famine are added into the mix, it becomes enormously difficult. That is, however, a challenge we have to face. That is why the international community has been trying to develop in recent years more of a nexus approach, working across developmental, humanitarian and political security action at the same time. It is easy to put down on a piece of paper but much harder to do in practice, but we have to because conflict is actually now the main driver of hunger in the world.

To be perfectly honest, in a very extreme setting, if there are disabled children, the reality is they may be the first to die in a famine, number one because they are weak and number two because maybe they are the ones who receive least attention. We have to integrate much better. That is what we are doing now, which is our immediate humanitarian work without giving up on our development work. We are exploring with the United Nations a partnership to roll out training-----

Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail)
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Sorry, I must go. There is a vote in the Seanad.

Mr. Michael Gaffey:

Okay. We would be happy to come back and brief on that again.

Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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Does Mr. Roughneen want to answer Senator McGreehan's points?

Mr. Dualta Roughneen:

I will. I hope she can listen back. The use of the marker is one step and only a partial step. There is a danger in markers as well. They are useful for gathering information. There are many markers at the moment. When we receive Irish Aid funding, we have to fill out a lot of markers as well. There is a risk that people try to make their work become all singing, all dancing. They are trying to tick the box around climate change, gender, disaster, risk reduction, adaptation, and disability is another one. There is a risk of regression to the mean to an extent. Sometimes it is targeted, specific programmes that need to be done. I understand the need to do this but there is a risk that much of the work will become very samey, so to speak. The organisations will start doing similar work and we will then miss out on that targeted, sometimes very specific, work that needs clinical expertise as well. I mean clinical in a general sense rather than medical. We find as an organisation, in looking at the funding landscape, not just Irish Aid but looking abroad as well, that there so many boxes that need to be ticked that we look at our strategy and think donors will not want to fund us unless we can say we have climate change expertise, gender expertise and another expertise. That means we cannot resource in the disability inclusion expertise we really need. We cannot prioritise it.

That is why I would always be concerned that everybody wants everything to be ticked. For Senator McGreehan, I would love to see all the work and all of Irish Aid's funding being disability inclusive. It is one of our objectives as an organisation to support some of the larger NGOs such as Concern and Trócaire to ensure their work becomes disability inclusive as well, but it is not easy for them because they have other priorities. I feel Mr. Gaffey's pain sometimes around the Better World policy. I could not say whether organisations for people with disabilities were included in some of the discussion. They potentially were, but ultimately there are so many demands for everybody wanting to get their priorities in there. There is the hunger priority and the conflict.

Mr. Gaffey talked about the nexus, which is a relatively new language in international development where humanitarian work and development work overlap. It is not new in practice; it is just a new way of speaking about it. There are areas like Niger and Burkina Faso where you try to make progress around system development or, if you are working on education, around inclusive education.

In such circumstances, you are also responding to core humanitarian needs where there are no schools for children to attend. You are setting up tented schools and trying to make them accessible, or trying to train up teachers rapidly to teach in a way that ensures children with disabilities can be included. It is very difficult. The language can be nice but the practice of doing it is not so easy. There is no simple solution that we can give. Markers help to point that direction but they definitely do not solve it. Markers are great but it is important to get a targeted focus on disability inclusion work as well so it does not fall as a general approach. The general approach is hugely important but sometimes people with disabilities have specific needs and need specific supports to be able to access their rights here and now as well. There is a long-term gain around societal, attitudinal and cultural changes when people with disabilities in some of the places we work are not hidden away in the background. In my previous role we did research in Togo and Guinea. We were working in schools where 1% of children in schools might have had some form of disability. In reality, we know that levels of disability would be 10% or 11% at a minimum so where were all the other children? They were not getting to school. They were not even visible in their communities. They were hidden away, sometimes in institutions. We are looking to see how we can work specifically and enable those children to go to schools while ensuring the education system is open for them to access. Then they can learn and they do not simply go to school and feel like they are sitting there when sometimes they regress further in their education.

Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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This has been an interesting discussion. I am sorry I had to leave to go to another meeting. If I repeat what others have said, please remind me.

Poverty and conflict will impact people with disabilities to a greater degree than people without disabilities. This is the case for those in low-income settings in particular. It sums up the challenges faced. It is good to see that slow and steady progress is being made to address poverty in all dimensions. I want to thank our guests for that. Would we have thought many years ago that we would be trying to address these changing issues? Now we are trying to ensure that everyone is included, including people with disabilities.

While Ireland is achieving 80%, and most people have alluded to this, globally only 50% of targets are on track. Without clapping ourselves on the back, we have come quite a way. If an economy is robust, that probably presents more choices to address. When the Government had to make hard decisions in 2011, I think Colm McCarthy was the economist who said the Government did not lack compassion; it just lacked money. That sums it up. If we are doing well economically, we have to redouble our efforts to ensure the people in attendance today can deliver.

Will the officials discuss the SDG implementation and A Better World? How were people with disabilities consulted? How are the benefits of SDG implementation for people with disabilities taken into account?

Will the officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs highlight how social inclusion of persons with disabilities and their deinstitutionalisation is included among the priorities in international investment programmes, including European structural funds and European investment funds, and in general harmonisation within the UNCRPD? When the Government is investing in stocks and shares, we are conscious that it should not be politically improper. There is something we need to work on here.

Finally, the Department noted that a mapping of all programmes and projects that support disability-inclusive development was undertaken. Disability inclusion work is evident across Ireland’s programme in over 51 countries. Will the officials discuss the situation, with approximately 130 countries included in Ireland’s programme?

Mr. Michael Gaffey:

An important point to make is that A Better World is adopted by the Government as its international development programme. Unlike previous versions of our development policy, it is not just adopted by the Department of Foreign Affairs. That is an important point. When it was being drawn up in 2018-19, there was a series of public consultations - I think there were five - with participation from disability groups and representatives, who also submitted written submissions. There was an extensive series of written submissions. We also worked with the Dóchas working group on disability. It is the representative group of the development NGOs. There was a lot of consultation in that. We continue to engage with the Dóchas working group and with the disability community as we implement A Better World.

We are regenerating the firm commitment to this programme now. It was not that we were sidetracked during Covid, but that the priorities looked somewhat different. We have really examined it, consulted on it and discussed it. We believe it is still valid for the world we face today. Rather than regenerating it or creating a new programme, we are focusing more on fully implementing it and trying to ensure the commitment to reaching the furthest behind first is something we implement in all of our programmes.

When we talk about mapping and about 24% being evident in 51 countries, that is a bit of a broad brush, to be perfectly honest. We are really focused in our aid in a smaller number of countries. As Mr. Roughneen said, it will be good to go down more into the detail of that. We are doing that at the moment. We are looking at the mapping exercise that was done to make sure we are satisfied with it and we can work with it in order to move ahead. I understand the point that is made to us that all of our work should be disability inclusive. I will not give all the examples but the countries where we do our most focused work are our priority countries, such as Mozambique, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Malawi, where we have teams working on the ground with NGOs and the UN, and bilaterally with governments. In those counties, we have our best understanding of society and we can have the most impact. In many other countries, we work through NGOs or the UN. One of our main priority countries where we have programmes is Ethiopia, where we have a €32 million programme. If you include the money we provide through NGOs, Ireland is providing some €40 million a year to work with Ethiopia, its government and its people on its development. The figure for Mozambique is about €27 million and for Malawi is about €18 million. Therefore, as well as being broad, we want to look at the countries where we have expertise and experience to see how we can improve and get to know the culture and systems better.

Deinstitutionalisation was mentioned. I think Mr. Roughneen spoke about it. It is also known as decongregation. It is a particular challenge in poor developing countries.

The numbers of people with disabilities in institutions are higher in Europe than they are in some developing countries but that is not necessarily a good thing. The issue is how disabled people are treated in very poor societies. In the past, that has not been positive. In poor countries, children and adults with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of institutionalisation. We are working to support community-based care as the primary method of support for adults and children with disabilities As Mr. Roughneen stated, that is easier said than done. It is our ambition. We work with UNICEF in particular on it but, in many cases, it is just not possible. In some contexts, institutionalised care may be the only solution. That is where we are working to support transition to community-based alternatives as the principle behind our support. In the context of the countries in which we have the biggest programmes, we have an initiative in Tanzania to explore community-based approaches over institutionalised care. We are working on it but I would not underestimate the difficulties of doing that. We need targeted approaches but we also need broader approaches. Tackling hunger and poverty is not targeted to disability but it is essential in order to tackle disability and disability inclusion.

One of the ways in which we work is through social protection systems. In Tanzania, Malawi and Uganda, we work closely with governments and the UN on social protection systems that provide cash into the hands of the poorest people. Very often, that cash is, by design, provided into the hands of women, as the leaders of households and the people who do the work in rearing families and in smallholder agriculture. In designing those systems, what we are attempting to do, and actually doing, is to work with the governments of Tanzania and Malawi to ensure social protection is provided specifically to people with disabilities. There could be a tendency to exclude them. We are applying that inclusive ambition in the design of social protection systems on which we are working. That is not solely focused on disability, but it is essential to ensure the work one does exclusively with disabled communities also enables them to work in societies. It is a significant challenge but we recognise it is necessary and we are making progress in that regard. It has to be done because tackling the social attitudes towards people with disabilities is essential in order to make progress.

Mr. Dualta Roughneen:

The Deputy is correct that a robust economy is essential to the progress that can be made on any of the aspects relating to sustainable development goals but also in addressing disability. It would be naive to think a less than robust economy means robust communities and robust households with higher income. All those things are important. If there is a family member with a disability, that costs money. Part of the challenge in respect of international co-operation is that it costs more to reach the furthest behind and the more vulnerable. One could easily work with the low-hanging fruit but others will also pick the low-hanging fruit. For Ireland, the commitment to leaving no one behind is important but there is a need to understand it costs more money to address the challenges. Even accessing people with disabilities in rural or marginalised communities might involve driving over bumpy roads for a day and a half. These are the challenges encountered by some of the organisations working on these matters. Improving economies helps to address all these things. It means better roads and infrastructure, more income for families and communities and better social protection systems.

Mr. Gaffey referred to supporting social protection systems. Ultimately, overseas aid can support and backstop those social protection systems but there is not enough money in overseas aid to ensure they are across the sector. Governments in Malawi or Burkina Faso, for example, have to develop their own tax base and resource base, which will lead to economic growth. They can then establish strong social protection systems and, ideally, ensure people with disabilities have specific protections in those systems.

On the issue of deinstitutionalisation, one must be careful. If we want to take away institutionalisation, we need to ensure there is a solution in place for those affected. It is often the case that people with disabilities have nowhere else to go. When we consider institutions in the past in Ireland, we sometimes do not look at them from the perspective that there was no other solution for people with disabilities at that time. The governments of the time were not offering solutions. Reference was made to decongregation, but congregations played a role. The situation is similar in some of the countries in which we are working on international co-operation. Institutions are there because there is nothing else. The danger is that those institutions become a draw. The family of a person with a disability may believe there is an opportunity to move the person to the institution but the person then ends up in worse condition. Often, however, people are in institutions because their families and communities are not able to cope. It takes time to set up the systems for community-based inclusive care and there is the issue of who supports those systems in the longer term. That requires strong government, including local government. It is not easy. It is not a clear linear path to achieving some of these changes.

Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for their contributions this evening. They identified the importance of achieving the SDGs and doing so in conjunction with the implementation of the UNCRPD. Those aims can be achieved in tandem. They identified that disabled people are vulnerable. Mr. McLoughlin stated, "disabled persons are not inherently vulnerable but can become vulnerable through social and environmental barriers". That is what we hear from disabled people all the time. It is not the disability that disables them but, rather, the environment they are trying to negotiate at all times. Obviously, that challenge is worsened in a crisis situation such as a war or natural disaster. I understand how difficult it is.

Article 11 of the UNCRPD deals with situations of risk and humanitarian emergencies. It was introduced after the tsunami in 2004, which led to the death of 230,000 people, many of them disabled people who were just left behind. During Covid-19, however, and the response to it, we saw disabled people being left behind. Disabled people were left behind when there was flooding in Germany in 2021 and they are being left behind in the context of the Ukraine war. Things have not changed. What can be done to improve the situation in order to prevent disabled people constantly being left behind? I dread to think what the people of Gaza, especially the vulnerable people there, are going through, as well as those in the many other places in the world where there is conflict. I appreciate the important work our guests do, but we have the UNCRPD because disabled people were left behind and not treated equally. That has been the case for decades and generations. It is an uphill battle to ensure they are treated equally. If disabled people had the same rights as everybody else, they would not have to overcome so many barriers, they would be part of society and they would not be forgotten about when a crisis or humanitarian situation arises.

We have representatives from two Departments and another organisation. Their work is all similar. Is there co-operation across Departments and organisations? The committee often hears from people who talk about silos, with different Departments addressing similar issues but not working in tandem. Do the witnesses' Departments or organisations work together? Is there co-operation across Departments on how to achieve goals?

An issue that has been raised with us a few times is international election monitoring and how important it is to ensure democracy is upheld, elections are fair and so on. The committee recommended that the election observation process in Ireland should increase the recruitment of observers with disabilities to a minimum of 15%. Has that been achieved?

Mr. Michael Gaffey:

I will answer the easy question first on whether we work across Departments. That has been a challenge on the sustainable development goals, SDGs. The SDGs do challenge every Government system to work in a more integrated manner and to tackle the silos that did exist before. All the goals are interdependent. The achievement of the SDGs is only possible if all the goals are achieved. They are interdependent, which is a very important point. It is not good for anyone to say "We have achieved SDGs 3, 6 and 9." We cannot achieve one without achieving them all. This pushes the administrative system in all governments to co-operate and work together more effectively. When we adopted the goals in 2015, and with the very strong role that Ireland played, we then had a period internally in the system of trying to work out how to do that. It was a challenge and every country had to do it in a different way. The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications has the overall co-ordinating lead and then every Department has to work towards reporting on what we are doing on the SDGs, which have national and international responsibilities. The work of the Department of Foreign Affairs is broadly on the international side but the co-ordinating mechanisms, the working together and the cross-departmental work has improved hugely because of the sustainable development goals. It is much better than it was in the past and there is a much better understanding of that interdependence. It probably took the system a little longer to do it than it took, for instance, young people in schools and universities to understand the SDGs. The concept of interdependence that we used to talk about 20 or 30 years ago is much clearer to everybody now just what that means. One the biggest impetuses to building that understanding has been climate change, which affects absolutely everybody be they sitting in Dublin or sitting in Lilongwe, Malawi. The cross-government and cross-Department co-operation, co-ordination and engagement is miles better than it was ten years ago. I would put that down to the SDGs but obviously it will always need to improve.

An important point was made about working Article 11 post tsunami and working in emergencies. Sometimes it does not look like progress is being made. The disasters we are facing sometimes feel to be getting worse and happening with much greater frequency. The truth is that natural disasters are happening with much greater frequency and conflicts are happening with much greater frequency. We do not have the luxury of dealing separately with conflicts because they are both interlocking and overlapping.

The Deputy also made the point that it is very important in all of this to listen to the voice of people who are living with disability, rather than deciding ourselves as administrators or politicians what it is that they need. We attempt to do this. We have started working with the UN on exactly this point around emergencies. We are working with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, on how we can make progress on including disabled people much more effectively in the response to humanitarian emergencies. Just one or two years ago, we launched at the UN interagency standing committee guidelines on the inclusion of persons with disability in humanitarian action. There is a lot of work going on in that where Irish Aid and the Department of Foreign Affairs are working along with United Nations. There is, however, a lot more work to be done now. The central emergency response fund of the UN, to which Ireland is one of the main donors, is the UN system of responding immediately and rapidly to emergencies. Ireland supported an initiative to tackle underfunded areas that were not being funded under the central emergency reserve fund. One of those areas included disability. We were on the advisory board of this UN fund and we were able to make progress there. We are being reappointed at the end of this year to that fund, which is a very influential post in advising and working on how the UN responds to emergencies. We will have an opportunity there to raise the profile for our commitment to disability inclusion in humanitarian action. Having said that here today, when we join it I hope the committee will hold us to account and ask us about how we have managed that when we are back on that advisory group from the end of this year.

On the election monitoring, yes I am aware of that recommendation. Members probably will be aware that the next version of the election roster is under way at the moment. We advertised for expressions of interest and at the moment these are being assessed with a view to appointing the new roster at the end of this year. We have included disability inclusion. We have consulted on how to do that. I will be honest and say that I do not know whether we will reach the 15% target but we are making strong efforts to ensure that we do recognise the role that people living with disability can and should play in election monitoring. I will be happy to come back to members on that subject when we have the new roster completed in the coming months.

Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Mr. Gaffey.

Mr. Dualta Roughneen:

I will respond to something Mr. Gaffey said but first I will talk about co-operation. There is a lot of co-operation among international NGOs, but sometimes it is too much and we nearly have too many meetings. There is a disability inclusion development working group here in Ireland and a number of NGOs are a part of that, including CBM Global. Mr. Kabir is a co-chair. We discuss and engage with Irish Aid at those meetings as well. Irish Aid's disability programme person was at the meeting last week. There is a lot of overlap in the engagement and discussion. We also work with other international NGOs, INGOs. Some of us are currently working with Trócaire on a piece of work to bring disability inclusion into Trócaire's work more generally. CBM Global has an inclusion advisory group that works with the UN at different levels. The group has been brought in to support UNICEF in Nepal on bringing disability inclusion into their work, and with the World Food Programme on some of their larger pieces of work. It is the largest UN agency in terms of the scale of work it does. There is a lot of co-operation in trying to add value and not do everything independently and all by ourselves.

Reference was made to the tsunami. We talked about the horror of it and the same issues arising when a new rapid onset emergency happens whereby people disabilities do get left behind. Sometimes it is so difficult to prepare for something like a tsunami hitting. How does one solve that problem without asking people to make the decision of fleeing themselves or bringing other people with them? It is such a difficult philosophical decision, never mind an ethical and moral one. There is progress in those areas. UN Security Council Resolution 2475 talks about the protection of people with disabilities in conflict. It creates particular commitments on the part of governments and on behalf of actors in the conflict to respect the rights of people with disabilities, to not target them etc. There are also Inter-Agency Standing Committee, IASC, guidelines on the humanitarian response for people with disabilities in that response in order that they are not ignored, are part of that response, are not just considered as objects to receive benefit from that response, are involved in the discussions around how the humanitarian response in an emergency is shaped and framed and in what gets prioritised and are involved in how their needs are met in the humanitarian response. A lot of things are happening. They happen incrementally sometimes but we are seeing improvements and changes.

It is great for Irish Aid to have that position on some of the UN boards as well to be able to influence but from our perspective as well, we feel that over the last number of years the percentage of official development assistance to international NGOs has dropped even though the overall budget is increasing. We would like to see that trend somehow reversed so this percentage is at least maintained and increased for the NGO partners.

They are the ones Irish Aid can influence more concretely because they have that direct relationship, whereas you are on a board when it comes to UN pooled funding. We definitely appreciate being influenced by Irish Aid if we are being influenced in the right direction. Definitely, protecting the funding for international NGOs in the overseas aid budget is hugely important.

Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Roughneen. I listened with great interest, and too many meetings were mentioned. I know the reverend sister is in the audience but I remember as a young fella having an uncle who worked through the Redemptorists in the north east of Brazil - I could nearly give the exact date. In 1979 he took over more than $10,000 strapped to himself that had been donated from different communities and from different people. That money went straight to build a facility for people with disabilities.

In latter years, I worked with people who were in Rwanda who tried to get out, particularly after the genocide and the difficulties there. When I was elected, we discussed Irish Aid and the global aid being provided and different countries and governments coming together for global aid. Those who had worked in the north east of Brazil and in Rwanda - some of whom got into fierce difficulties with the dictatorships there at the time and were imprisoned for a time and so forth - were asking how effective it was and what percentage of the money given by Irish Aid landed where it is needed for disabilities. The committee was at the UN in June and as for there being too many meetings, there is an awful lot of discussion going on about what the right thing to do is. Sometimes trying to get it word perfect or the system perfect stops real and effective change. I know there have to be checks and balances because, as was mentioned, in some countries we are dealing with very difficult and corrupt regimes. There are also conflicts and major civil wars going on. We have to be advocates for getting more aid from the developed countries. We see the challenges for people with disabilities in our own country in getting enough funding let alone in places that are underdeveloped. Would it be a concern for witnesses that there are too many systems or that too much money is spent on building the systems rather than getting the money to the places where it is needed? The witnesses may like to comment on that.

Maybe it is a challenge that we spend too much time talking about it. I know a guy who worked as a layperson in Burkina Faso in the early 2000s. He said the most direct way to get funding to where it was needed was in the lining of missionaries' coats. He said also that there were too many systems. That may be an over-generalisation but is there a challenge there that we are building too many systems to really have a direct impact on people with disabilities in countries that are not equipped, or that the attitude is not there, to provide what is necessary for them?

Mr. Michael Gaffey:

There are a number of very big issues there. The first thing I would do is to pay strong tribute to the work of the missionaries over the years, especially Irish missionaries. I mention not just Irish missionaries but all missionaries working with poor communities across Africa and Latin America and bringing education and health services where none existed or would exist if they had not been there. We are still strong supporters of the missionaries through Misean Cara. We value their work, experience and learning hugely.

The balance of risk is a constant issue. I do not want to revisit past traumas but approximately ten years ago, there was the huge problem with the loss of Irish Aid funds in Uganda. We have worked very hard on building up systems for accountability and on taking account of risk. Sometimes we hear that the systems are maybe inhibiting proper targeting. We work to get the balance right. The truth is that there is no point in putting money into a country if it disappears through corruption. Therefore, building up government, health and educational systems is a very important part of our work as well as working with individual projects and ensuring they get the money. We just have to get that balance right.

One issue that is a major discussion point internationally and in civil society and governments now is how to have a more locally led approach to development and humanitarian action, that is, how to provide aid and assistance not just in terms of what we think the priorities are but what local communities need. Through their experiences, they can tell us what they need. Maybe in the past we went too far in being too centralised and in talking down. This move towards what is called "localisation", or I think it is better to say "locally led development", is one where the debate on accountability and risk is a major one. Sometimes it is said that providing funding to small local organisations is too risky but the other side of the argument is that we will not be able to address the problems if we do not understand what those local organisations need. Therefore, there is an actual risk there in not addressing the issues that are the subject of our work. Across the NGO system and government there is a real effort now to be more locally led in our approaches. It is a challenge for civil society, for the big Irish NGOs, and for ourselves.

If we look at Ireland's work and Irish Aid's work, it can be seen that we have learned a huge amount from our work on the ground. When we talk of the United Nations, we do so on the basis of lessons we are learning in the countries we are working with, and the organisations we are working with. We have been assessed and measured internationally as one of the most effective countries in getting the assistance to the poorest, in having a poverty focus, and in getting the assistance there. We are not complacent about that but because it is such a strong, determined priority for Ireland, we are forced to and we work in that way.

At the moment, across the developed world there is a sense of shift and uncertainty as to how to use development assistance. Ireland remains very strong on the need for a poverty focus, to work in the least developed countries and for Europe to have a strong focus on Africa. That debate is ongoing inevitably because the world at the moment is in such a state that there are pressures coming from every region. Ireland is taking a lead on keeping the focus on the poorest countries and the poorest communities and in working to design our programmes so that we can live up to what we are saying our priorities are in terms of delivery.

Mr. Dualta Roughneen:

I thank Mr. Gaffey. There are probably two aspects to it. One is that there is sometimes a tendency to have too many layers in overseas assistance. There can be layers between our funding flows through different entities. The example of working with UN organisations is hugely important. There is a central emergency response fund. Then there is a UN agency sometimes managing that fund and we might work with it. We go through those layers where sometimes the quicker layer might be when Irish Aid fund the international NGOs directly to do the work fairly quickly rather than funding through the UN system. It can be a challenge, it is a balance, and I appreciate that.

At CBM Ireland in our work in Kenya and Zimbabwe we work with organisations of people with disabilities that are often small groups. The challenge is sometimes around systems for accountability. If we wanted to give money to those groups, maybe €5,000 or €10,000, to do a specific piece of work the requirements for them to report to us so that we can report back to Irish Aid are identical to the requirements we would have under the Charities Regulator, as a complex organisation with systems in place for doing that. Whereas these organisations for people with disabilities would not have those systems. If something goes wrong with the money or if it goes missing or is not fully accounted for Irish Aid will come for us and ask for that money to be returned if we cannot account for it.

That can be a big challenge. It is a challenge for all donors because they have other areas of accountability that they must also respond to. I appreciate the work of the missionaries. Sometimes the best way to get the money in is to go directly but sometimes something goes wrong and then, before we knock down a wall, we have to ask why it was put up. It was usually put up for a particular reason. The problem with the overseas aid system is that small walls have been put up everywhere, over time and for different reasons. Situations evolve. Sometimes, with a step back and clarity of mind, one could put up one good wall and remove some of those layers and obstacles as well. It is sometimes very difficult to disengage from or disentangle the system we are in, which has been getting more complex over time. It is a very complex ecosystem.

Mr. Michael Gaffey:

We are very pleased to be in Limerick. Everybody working in Irish Aid who is working in Limerick is working there because they want to be in Limerick. The Deputy may recall that at the start, way back in 2008 when we were moving to the city, there was a sense that some people felt they were being forced to work in a different place. We have a very good system being based in Limerick and in Dublin. Dr. Hunt came up this morning. The train broke down but she made it all the same. Limerick is very important to us. At the start of decentralisation, some people said it would never work. It is now a system that is working very well. Working between Limerick, Dublin, Africa and elsewhere abroad taught us how to work remotely and with video conferencing long before many others had to do it. That has been a very good experience.

Official development assistance is the money that we in Irish Aid use. Irish Aid does not make up all of Ireland's ODA. Other Government Departments contribute towards ODA. Ireland's share of the EU development co-operation budget is not a cheque that we give but a calculation based on our GNI. It is not well known that as a net contributor now, Ireland has a bigger share of the EU development co-operation budget than we ever had. In 2021, it was around €240 million and next year we estimate it will be some €350 million.

Irish Aid is funded by Vote 27 of the Department of Foreign Affairs. In the budget it received an 8.4%, or €60 million, increase, bringing us to €767 million. This is the highest the aid budget of the Department of Foreign Affairs has ever been. Obviously, that is essential for our work. The increase is quite targeted. Some €30 million of it, combined with another €12.5 million from the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, will go towards the commitment made by the then Taoiseach and now Tánaiste in 2016 to reach a target of providing €225 million annually in international climate finance by 2025. With yesterday's announcement, we are well on course to meeting that target. International climate finance is very important in our development work because a huge amount of what is needed is adaptation to climate change by very poor countries and small island states. We are ramping up that work quickly, which is very important.

The other €30 million of the €60 million increase will focus very much on humanitarian emergency, Ukraine and the priority of food security and malnutrition, on which Ireland is taking an international lead. This is in addition to the funding we have from this year, which will be carried forward at that level next year.

I will explain briefly the target of 0.7% because it is a little complicated. As members will be aware, a percentage of GNI is the measure used. As GNI grows, it is difficult and a challenge to keep up and reach the 0.7% target. For quite a few years, Ireland's contribution was down at between 0.3% and 0.32%, which is not where anyone would want it to be. At the same time, the budgets were increasing every year. For a number of reasons, the figure has gone up significantly. We have been very transparent about this. There has been an increase because of increased funding and the increased share of the EU budget. The situation of refugees has also had an impact. The provision of services for Ukrainian refugees has had a major and, I hope, temporary impact. Under the OECD rules, the first-year costs for refugees in a country can be counted towards ODA. Last year, the government system provided services for more than 70,000 refugees. The number of Ukrainian refugees today is 95,000. Those first-year once-off costs brought our ODA up very significantly, to 0.63%, but Irish Aid and the Government are not, therefore, claiming that we are nearly at 0.7%. All of that money is ODA and it was all for refugees but if we exclude that element, Ireland's ODA stands at about 0.39%. We are making some progress and while it is difficult, it is progress nonetheless. We have had increases every year since the adoption of the sustainable development goals. We are at the highest ever level for the Department of Foreign Affairs.

On the refugee question, I emphasise that, unlike some other countries, we have not used any of the ODA allocation to Irish Aid and the Department of Foreign Affairs for refugee costs. Those costs have been separate and additional. Some countries have been forced to use that ODA money for their in-country refugee costs. That is where we are at the moment.

Mr. Michael Gaffey:

Yes. The 0.7% target was agreed in the UN back in the early 1970s. Obviously, as the Deputy can imagine, the initial idea in the late 1960s was to reach 1%, but through compromise and negotiation it became 0.7%. It is an imperfect target but it is a target. When some people have argued to drop the target internationally, we have made the point that if the target is dropped, there is nothing to work towards, and that can be a very difficult situation. It is, as the Deputy says, imperfect. GNI can go up. Back when the target was set, it was an era of optimism as regards economic growth whereby the assumption was that we were in an era of continuous economic growth. We had a particular experience with Ireland's programme. When I say we are this year at the highest ever level for Vote 27, the previous highest year was 2008. That is exactly the experience the Deputy is talking about. In 2009-10 the programme was cut by 23% in one year alone, but because in that year GNP or GNI fell by something catastrophic like 11%, it is not that our percentage went up and our funding went down, but our funding went down very significantly. For a few years, however, our percentage seemed to hold quite steady. We were up at 0.55% or 0.56% at the same time as grappling with cutting almost a quarter of our budgets. That is an extreme situation, but it is a commitment that successive governments have made. It is repeated in A Better World and in the programme for Government. There is a cross-party commitment to it, I think, and everyone recognises that we have to do more to try to achieve it.

Mr. Michael Gaffey:

No, there is no specific commitment there. That could be an issue for the political system.

Mr. Michael Gaffey:

There has been a pretty strong commitment in recent years to sustained, steady increases in the budget, and that has been delivered on. As I said earlier, in the UK legislation was brought in in order to tie ODA to the 0.7% target. It led to really interesting administrative procedures in trying to find the money and in trying to put it out there, but at least under legislation there was a commitment to that. The other side of that is that the legislation was changed and the commitment was dropped. What we have experienced is a commitment to steady increases.

Mr. Dualta Roughneen:

Practically, I would not be doing my job if I were not to say it is great to see the increase in ODA. I would not be doing my job if I were not to say there needs to be more. For sure, we need to move towards the 0.7% target. I had a small bit of PTSD when I heard Mr. Gaffney talk about 2008 and 2009. It would be interesting to see a solid financial commitment around ODA to avoid a repeat of that situation. In mid-2009, I think, we had contracts with Irish Aid, essentially with the Irish Government. Mid-year those contracts were essentially cut by 20%. The contract was essentially changed, and we had made commitments in five or six countries in west Africa. We had to go to the people we work with and say, "The Irish Government said it would give us this; it will actually give us less now."

A huge amount of work is needed. It took many people a good few years to recover from that almost emotionally and psychologically but also from a fiscal perspective inside various organisations. Definitely, avoiding that in future is hugely important. The increase in ODA is a good thing. We talk a little about the climate financing from a CBM perspective as well. One of the areas we are looking at is ensuring that climate financing is disability-inclusive. It is matter of adaptation programmes. There needs to be engagement and involvement with people with disabilities' organisations to ensure that those adaptation programmes are relevant and make sense for them, whether it is in some of the small island developing states like Papua New Guinea or the Solomon Islands or elsewhere, and a climate-proofing or climate adaptation will be done. One cannot not involve people with disabilities because they are the ones most at risk from a lot of the impacts of climate change we see. We would say that, with the climate financing, it is a matter of trying to make sure there are means to bring people with disabilities' organisations into that financing as well.

Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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That brings our meeting to a conclusion. I thank all the witnesses for attending the meeting and for all their insightful contributions. I thank Mr. McLoughlin for joining us online as well.