Dáil debates

Tuesday, 22 November 2022

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions

Disaster Response

10:00 pm

Photo of Brendan HowlinBrendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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76. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the actions that he has taken to date at the EU, UN or directly to address the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Somalia; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [57817/22]

Photo of Brendan HowlinBrendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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The scale of the unfolding hunger crisis in Somalia and in its neighbours in the Horn of Africa is truly shocking. It clearly demands an urgent and comprehensive international response. My question is simply to ask the Minister to set out what that response is.

Photo of Colm BrophyColm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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The fight against hunger and malnutrition is a key priority of Ireland's international development programme. The numbers affected by hunger are rising globally, and the food security situation in the Horn of Africa is particularly acute, including in Somalia where experts are warning of an imminent risk, as the Deputy clearly outlined, of widespread famine.

I saw for myself the devastation in the Horn of Africa during my recent visit to the region. In response to the rapidly deteriorating situation, the Government is providing more than €100 million in assistance to countries across the region this year. This includes €30 million in immediate emergency funding, which the Minister, Deputy Coveney, worked on for the budget this year. Of this additional funding, a significant portion will go directly to our partners who are active in Somalia to meet the needs of those affected by the worsening humanitarian crisis in the country. This will build on the €65 million in direct humanitarian funding provided by Ireland to Somalia since 2012.

Ireland contributes to the humanitarian response in Somalia through funds such as the UN Central Emergency Response Fund, CERF, which responds to crises as they emerge. The CERF has contributed over €76 million in emergency relief in Somalia since 2021.

Ireland has been a long-standing champion of global efforts to reduce hunger and malnutrition. At the December 2021 Nutrition for Growth Summit, Ireland pledged €800 million over the next five years for nutrition programmes. At the UN in September, we pledged an additional €50 million over three years to fight acute child malnutrition, in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, and United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF.

Photo of Brendan HowlinBrendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Few of us who witnessed it at the time will forget the visit of then President Mary Robinson to Somalia in 1992. After three days of visiting camps and meeting starving people, she broke down and wept at a press conference in neighbouring Kenya. People will remember that.

Thirty years later it is happening again, only on an even greater scale. In a year of unprecedented hunger, according to the World Food Programme, 828 million people will go to bed hungry tonight. In the Horn of Africa, four consecutive failed rainy seasons with the potential failure of the fifth means that 22 million people are at risk of starvation.

The three decades of civil war combined with climate change has brought an unprecedented catastrophe. I welcome the allocations of money but we need to do more to ensure that the conflict that has existed for 30 years ends too.

Photo of Colm BrophyColm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Part of our programme, both at the UN and everything on which we are focused, is to address that. I very much remember the then President's visit to Somalia. What I saw in the Horn of Africa first-hand is that there is one difference and it is something we need to be so conscious of more than anything else. In previous times, there was a failure of rains over a period of years and those rains may return. What we are looking at now is the first complete failure caused by climate change. This is a situation that has been brought about where there will not be a return to a pastoral life for the people who live in that part of the world. There will not be a return to the climate system that was there. One of the key things we are addressing, particularly through climate adaptation finance and through our development programme, is not only putting in place the immediate humanitarian aid which is needed on the spot to prevent the fact that 1.5 million children are acutely malnourished as we speak but to put in place the support mechanisms that will enable those people to change the way in which they are living. We are funding programmes that specifically will allow for a different type of agricultural existence to take place there where people will be able to remain and continue to live because we are never going back to what we had because of climate change.

Photo of Brendan HowlinBrendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I warmly welcome the Government's focus on these matters. Both the Minister of State, Deputy Brophy, and the Minister, Deputy Coveney, have a clear focus on the issue of hunger. Ireland has championed, with the United States, hunger at the United Nations as an absolute priority but now 22 million people face starvation in the Horn of Africa. There is an immediate issue that needs to be resolved as best we can, ensuring that that does not happen and those people do not succumb and that they survive.

Of course, the Minister of State is correct that the larger issue of climate change fundamentally alters matters. That is why I welcome at least that element of the Sharm el-Sheikh conclusions that there will be a resilience fund to support countries such as Somalia but we need to, as I say, have an immediate and urgent response as well as the medium-term response the Minister of State describes.

Photo of Colm BrophyColm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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There is, and that is why we put the supplementary amount of €30 million in place this year. That is why most of that will go into Somalia and will go into our partners who are on the ground in a position to immediately deliver on that.

I thank the Deputy for acknowledging there is incredible work being done by Ms Samantha Power in USAID in terms of this. With ourselves, they are probably to the forefront in highlighting the issues involved and in putting the supports and structures in place to try to make a real difference on the ground.

We need to continue to advocate strongly for more involvement. I will be raising this with my ministerial colleagues at our next European Council of Ministers meeting because this is the number one issue we are facing in Africa in terms of the potential for catastrophic famine. We need to act now before the famine and before those images that we all remember with such horror are a day-to-day occurrence on our television screens.