Ms Jane-Ann McKenna:

I might take a couple of the questions first before handing over to Mr. Clarken. On the budget, as I mentioned we are going for €1.3 billion in ODA, excluding refugee costs. Approximately €800 million of that is going through Irish Aid. The Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, was in a couple of weeks ago outlining what this entails. We are seeing that, although the figure of €300 million that we are putting forward is significant, and we would not deny that. If we look back, in areas in budget 2024, for example, Ireland stepped forward and actually increased the budget for ODA by more than €100 million. We really demonstrated at that time there was a significant crisis in the Horn of Africa, but we saw Ireland step forward and say that actually this is really important and that it was vital for us to pay our contribution of what we feel is most effective. That is really the moment we are coming to now again where we are really looking for that leadership. If we look at Ireland's positioning globally, we have a unique standing, whether it is through the G20 coming up, or our candidacy for the Human Rights Council, and the EU Presidency, and we have such a huge amount of credibility on the issues of development and humanitarian aid, and looking at what we need to do. We need to be able to back that up and we need to be able to show that we are also making significant inroads into trying to achieve 0.7% of GDP. A number of other European countries have reached it. It would lend into Ireland's legitimacy to be able to really advocate on this topic, which is such a key area for Ireland.

When we look at the civil society piece, which is more targeted, Irish Aid contributes just over €100 million to international NGOs with the partnership agreement over a four-year period. When that is trickled down, however, all international organisations are very much working through local organisations. It is very much around locally focused local partners and communities that are supporting their own communities. We are seeing when it comes to other multilateral funding or institutional funding, let us say from the UN, that trickle-down effect is not really happening with funding that is going to locally-led organisations or civil society organisations. That is where we really want to see the difference in Ireland, not only just pushing forward so that through all of its funding mechanisms, we would see an increase in funding going to civil society and local organisations, but also to women-led organisations. This is where we feel we can do more on where we spend the money but also what we are advocating on others to do and where to put the money, particularly in the UN institutions. I will ask Mr. Clarken to come in on a couple of the other points.