Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 21 November 2023
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence
Budget 2024, Official Development Assistance, COP28 and Ongoing Humanitarian Situations: Dóchas
Ms Finola Finnan:
We provide an awful lot of psychosocial support in Gaza and have done so for years through our partners. We have worked on gender-based violence, psychosocial support and trauma counselling. Those services have only increased, as Ms Bennett said. We have also checked in with partners and staff. Some 60% of the staff of our sister agency, CRS, have been displaced. As I said in my opening statement, everyone in Gaza has been impacted by the onslaught.
There is huge trauma there and there will be an enormous need for services. Medical Aid for Palestinians, the agency we support, already has a team of surgeons, psychologists and doctors ready to go in when there is safe access to Gaza. That will be enormous. We will continue to play a role in that and work alongside our partners there and in the West Bank which are gathering information and evidence.