Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)

I thank the Minister of State. I am pleased he was able to bring his own experience within the Department and his passion for this issue to his answer. Around the world, people are deeply disturbed by the callous actions of the US Administration in cutting support for the most vulnerable. Bill Gates today accused Elon Musk of killing the world's poorest children by leading this set of actions.

There are knock-on consequences. We see others emboldened by this. We have seen the disappointing decision of the UK Labour Party Government to retreat on its own aid commitments.

We know it is not a matter of filling in the money that has been lost. Ireland has a structured ODA system. We support particular countries and types of projects. I am not proposing we interfere with that in any way. However, the scale of the impact of the cuts mandated on USAID is so severe that we cannot just wait until next year's budgetary allocation. It is not that Ireland can make up that difference of $8 billion. We cannot do that. However, we can, working with the European Union, look to start a fund to try to bridge some of that gap. We need to look at those projects that are most essential. We must look at the diseases that are going to spiral out of control because the teams that are currently funded by USAID have had to withdraw. I urge the Minister of State to work with the European Union and like-minded countries to bring together the necessary funding so we can go some way towards bridging the gap. Let us lead by example by putting additional money on the table and do what we can to protect the most vulnerable on our planet.

See this speech in context