Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister's comprehensive reply detailing both the humanitarian response from Ireland's perspective and the multilateral political engagement at the United Nations. Ireland has, through its taxpayers, significantly invested in alleviating the humanitarian crisis since 2012. The Minister referenced the figure of €62 million committed so far. We had a debate on this issue last week and there was supposed to be a ceasefire last weekend. The United Nations had been hoping to use it to evacuate seriously wounded people and deliver aid, but that does not appear to have happened. Has the Minister given consideration to the fact that no aid has been delivered in Aleppo since 7 July? The UN Secretary General said food would run out, possibly by the end of this month. What is the Minister's view on this stark fact? What Srebrenica was to the 1990s, Aleppo is to the 2010s and the western world, in particular, the United States and others actors in the field, despite their best efforts from a humanitarian aid point of view, need to up their game in terms of political engagement

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