Ms Liz O'Donnell:

I will do and Ms de Barra can come in here because Trócaire has been on the ground working through Caritas. The scale is quite phenomenal. As the Tánaiste said this morning, it is difficult to comprehend the intensity and barbarity of what is going on. Ireland can be very proud, and I as a former Minister of State am very proud, the Government has been to the fore and so robust in its political stance at European Union and UN levels. The former Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, was very strong, without fear or favour, in addressing these issues in a very robust way and speaking to the humanitarian values Ireland has.

As a former Minister of State, I can say we have always had a very strong footprint in areas of emergency humanitarian response and our NGOs are known the world over. That is why it is so important our NGOs work together in an emergency situation like this to get the best possible output from Ireland. We have a soft appeal at the moment. We have criteria before which we can launch an appeal.

There is the difficulty of access to Gaza at the moment, which the Tánaiste mentioned this morning during his trip to Cairo and Jordan. They cannot get the aid in. This is why the world has to completely call for immediate access for humanitarian assistance. There is no shortage of aid; we just cannot get it in. As I said, we have a soft appeal but we will launch a major appeal for the rebuilding of Gaza as soon as access is made available. Access is the huge difficulty at the moment, which is why the Tánaiste was quite right to call for immediate improvement of access this morning. I believe the story this morning was some Irish aid had been stopped at the border. There were tents and things like that for humanitarian assistance. The tarpaulin of the tents had been let in but not the poles. It is ridiculous bureaucracy at the border, stopping and putting obstacles in front of humanitarian assistance going to the most needy people. Ms de Barra would like to comment as she has been there.