Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

While an awful lot of attention has been focused on the deteriorating security situation in Europe, less focus has been placed on the appalling action of the Trump Administration in the freezing of the USAID programme, which accounts for 40% of all global development aid. Vulnerable, sick and poor people all over the world are struggling to access programmes, including HIV care, tuberculosis care, and famine prevention programmes. Medication is locked in warehouses. While Europe is discussing more bombs and bullets, Trump has dropped a financial bomb on the global aid programme and it has a chilling impact on NGOs, which are afraid to speak out because they fear if they speak out, the freezing will become a permanent cut. What can Ireland, with our allies, do to help ameliorate this some of this immoral, appalling action by Trump?

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