Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for the question. The current El Niño weather event is one of the strongest ever measured. More unpredictable weather conditions are already having a detrimental effect on people’s lives and livelihoods across Africa, particularly in the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region. In the next six months humanitarian needs will increase, with severe droughts and flooding. Below normal rainfall and drought conditions have already affected parts of Ethiopia, Sudan, Djibouti and Eritrea, reducing agricultural production. Excessive rainfall is affecting parts of Ethiopia, Somalia and other countries, causing severe and sustained flooding, loss of livelihoods and disease outbreaks.

Irish Aid, the Government’s overseas development assistance programme, is stepping up its preparedness to respond.

Our long-term development programme in countries such as Ethiopia includes funding for a large social protection programme for the most vulnerable households. We are also scaling up humanitarian responses to reduce the impact on households and save lives in the worst affected places. In Ethiopia alone in 2015, Ireland has increased its bilateral programme to nearly €28 million in response to the humanitarian crisis. We are providing an additional €1.8 million in humanitarian assistance through non-governmental organisation, NGO, partners.

In total, Ireland has provided over €80 million in humanitarian assistance in 2015 and this budget will be increased to over €100 million for 2016. We are allocating additional resources across affected countries to support programmes which save lives, improve food security, protect livelihoods and build the resilience of people to withstand the effects of such a weather event across Africa. We will continue to monitor the position closely and scale up action as El Niño strengthens and conditions on the ground worsen.

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