Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

As usual, Deputy Gormley must be a little divisive.

Concrete action is €16 million in humanitarian aid. Every time there is a request, whether to help AMIS or people on the ground in need of humanitarian assistance, the Government has been forthcoming. That is concrete action, apart from any political involvement.

I would safely say there has been no Foreign Minister as vigilant and busy on this issue as I in that I was the first Minister to go into Darfur after the peace agreement. I think I am the only Minister to go into a displacement camp, which I saw for myself was hell on earth, so that I could articulate clearly to the rest of my colleagues the type of difficulties these people faced. As I stated, I went out of my way to go to Egypt to continue my discussions on the ground with the Egyptians, who have a particular point of view given that they are neighbours in this area. Those are not gestures but work by us, as a small nation within the EU and within the UN, through which we endeavour to articulate a crisis happening on our doorstep.

The divestment of Irish funds from Sudan is an issue we raised with the National Pensions Reserve Fund. Deputy Gormley would be the first one hopping up and down complaining about involvement by us in the independent statutory obligations of the National Pensions Reserve Fund board.

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