Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Ireland played its role on the peace secretariat. We had two to three diplomats working on the peace secretariat. We had a member of our Defence Forces who oversaw the decommissioning of weaponry in Mozambique. One of the secrets of good Irish diplomacy and work is trying to bring peace to other parts of the world. We have real problems in Cabo Delgado, where there is violence from Islamic State-affiliated insurgents and that has got worse in the first half of this year. Again, it is of course because natural resources have been discovered in that province. What follows the discovery of natural resources? People's attempts to create conflict and so on. From a security perspective, there is a vulnerability in Mozambique, in addition to being vulnerable to climate shocks and so forth. We always have sought to have a strong civil society dimension to our aid programme, as well as a governance, women, peace and security dimension to our development aid. We are doing the right thing for the right reasons to enable human potential to develop but if we pulled it back in any of these countries or if we or other western developed countries did not maintain it - in fact other countries should increase their development aid - we would have higher levels of migration flowing to Europe. That is the other side of the coin, if you want to do it from a self-interested point of view. People are pulling their supports out of Syria now and what they are telling us in Jordan and nearby is that it is increasing the flow of migration.