Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

The Government's response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti on 12 January has been multi-faceted and effective, involving the airlifting of emergency supplies, funding for the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies, and the deployment of personnel both from Irish Aid, within the Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Irish Aid-managed rapid response corps.

In the days immediately following the earthquake, my colleague, the Minister of State with responsibility for overseas development, Deputy Peter Power and I despatched a technical team of four personnel to Haiti to undertake an analysis of priority needs and to make recommendations for action by Irish Aid in the medium and longer term. The team, which comprised three officials from Irish Aid and an engineer from the Defence Forces, spent five days on the ground. Their recommendations are informing our decisions on the role Ireland should play in the relief and recovery effort in Haiti.

In addition to the Irish Aid team, the Government has deployed seven members of the rapid response corps to Haiti - the largest number deployed to a single emergency since the initiative was established following the 2004 Asian tsunami. Corps members are highly-specialised volunteers who travel to crisis situations at the request of our UN and other humanitarian partners.

Four corps members – a civil engineer, an electrical engineer, a telecommunications technician and an IT expert – have been assigned to the World Food Programme, while two logisticians have been deployed to work with Concern and Goal respectively. A seventh member, a retired army officer, is working as civil-military co-ordinator with the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA. An eighth will deploy next week to work with OCHA as a protection officer, dealing with the complex issue of sexual abuse and exploitation among the disaster-affected population. These deployments are for up to six months.

Other Corps members remain on standby and we expect further deployments in the weeks and months ahead.

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