Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is quite right in his analysis. We are working with the World Food Programme. As a small country, our best involvement is through large international organisations. Under our commitment with the World Food Programme we have put in €75 million from 2022 to 2024, increasing support to it. The Deputy is right to highlight that in a number of countries where the World Food Programme is the primary source of food supply there are going to be issues later in the year. We are conscious of that. We are working on that. We are also working to ensure that our own aid programmes, while maintaining focus on Ukraine, continue to function within those countries. There is no question that there is a supply side issue from Ukraine and Russia to the World Food Programme. Even if that can be met there will be international price implications for World Food Programme purchasing. This needs to be a collective response and we are working on addressing it now.

See this speech in context