Ms R?iseal N? Ch?illeachair:

I would like to come back to the Deputy's previous point first, if that is okay. He will probably be familiar with the Concern debates that take place on an annual basis.

This year, 280 schools engaged. We would all say that young people are more informed and engaged and are deeply empathic with other young people around the world. Social media has connected young people on a level that we probably do not understand. There is a huge amount of awareness among schools, teachers, families and so on. We cannot emphasise clearly enough that climate change is the issue. It is engaging young people on an incredible level.

As Senator Craughwell said, there is awareness around the impact of fast fashion and so on. That would not have been the case 20 years ago, but there is a much greater understanding of the impact of inequality. As the Deputy said, statistics are one thing but the fact that young people, and all of us, have access to information on abuses happening in real time and are almost witnessing what is happening could make us much more helpless, but we have seen with recent conflicts that has brought a swell of outrage, awareness and demand that this should not be the way that our world works. How we translate that into action is key. There needs to be an awareness of Ireland's aid budget and the work that organisations like ours do. We do a huge amount of that through our global citizenship work in schools, with community and youth groups, intergenerational conversations and so on. That is impactful. As people see how our world is changing, that increases the demand for greater action and leadership from Ireland.