Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I am more than happy to come back to Deputy Ó Fearghaíl with direct replies in due course, but to his question on air drops, our Belgian colleagues are trying to organise support for that. The issue with opening UN humanitarian corridors is that they are controlled by the Israeli military. That is why there is a blockade, and it is very hard to force your way into territory that is protected by one of the most heavily equipped military forces in the world.

As regards our partnerships with those around us, we will continue to make the case that Ireland is doubling its defence spending but we are not cutting our overseas development aid spending. That is a case we will make forcefully at a European Union member state level. We obviously maintain our absolute support for the work of the WHO. We do not believe it should be a binary decision between development aid spending and defence spending and we think those who equate the two as being one and the same envelope in expenditure terms are not doing themselves a good service.