Results 61-80 of 4,815 for speaker:Neale Richmond

Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate: Passport Services (27 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: I am delighted to take this question from Deputy Donnelly and I appreciate the constructive manner that it is placed and hopefully I will be able to reply in an equally constructive manner. I will skip over some of the introductory remarks, which he will receive to his place shortly - because the Deputy knows himself the Passport Office is working extremely hard on delivering overall, with...

Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Business of Joint Committee (27 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: I thank the Cathaoirleach and the entire committee for the invitation to be the committee's first victim. Sorry, I meant witness. I hope I will be back numerous times over the coming months and years. Before I start my remarks, I wish to say directly to the Cathaoirleach, with whom I soldiered, alongside Deputy Brennan, for quite some time in the same part of the world, that and I am...

Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Business of Joint Committee (27 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: For context, in April of last year, the then Taoiseach and the Spanish Prime Minister called for a review of Article 2 of the EU-Israel association agreement based on our continuing opinion that flagrant human rights abuses are being carried out in Gaza and the West Bank by Israel. We were the only two member states that sought that. This time, 17 member states backed it, in the form of a...

Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Business of Joint Committee (27 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: I am more than happy to come back to Deputy Ó Fearghaíl with direct replies in due course, but to his question on air drops, our Belgian colleagues are trying to organise support for that. The issue with opening UN humanitarian corridors is that they are controlled by the Israeli military. That is why there is a blockade, and it is very hard to force your way into territory that...

Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Business of Joint Committee (27 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: On behalf of all the wonderfuly trained and far more qualified diplomats of the Department of foreign affairs, I accept the plaudits of Deputies Ó Laoghaire and Ó Fearghaíl and join absolutely in the condemnation of the shots fired at our diplomats last week in Jenin. It is also worth noting that another Irish diplomat was present in Washington, DC, when two other diplomats...

Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Business of Joint Committee (27 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: There is no "could"; the cuts to USAID will lead to an extensive loss of life in the global south, from HIV-AIDS, conflict and insecurity to basic deprivation. There is no "could"; they will. We should not be afraid to say that. There is a moral imperative to make sure that people are reminded of that. As regards debt, I will attend a financing for development conference in Seville next...

Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Business of Joint Committee (27 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: I thank Deputy Brennan sincerely, not just for his contribution but for his ongoing 20-year commitment. He walked the walk and that was well known to me long before he made the decision to join electoral politics, and we are all the better for it. I will touch specifically on our diaspora later in my wrap-up and give some detail about where the funding goes. I might talk first about how we...

Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Business of Joint Committee (27 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: I thank the Senator. I am more than happy to go offline but I want to combine two elements of the Senator's points in relation to the funding for women's rights and gender equality and responding to where gender-based violence, GBV, is used as a tool of war, because there is sometimes overlap. The Senator has hit the nail on the head by emphasising the importance of utilising and empowering...

Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Business of Joint Committee (27 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: I will not repeat answers because I only have two minutes and I want to get into the nub of some of the issues that others have not raised but Senator Higgins has, if that is okay. Regarding maternal health, it will all be about the volume, but it is also about seizing things that are easily relatable to the tax-paying public and making sure that we can demonstrate this. It is not a...

Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Business of Joint Committee (27 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: The timeline is within the gift of the High Representative and a referral to the European Council, so I cannot answer that question. It is a matter for Kaja Kallas. The Chair might give me an extra 30 seconds on this, because it is quite important. It will influence a lot of my engagement on Monday and Tuesday of next week.

Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Business of Joint Committee (27 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: I will come back later regarding ICE in America, if that is okay.

Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Business of Joint Committee (27 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: No. There is an overall budget, which includes our work in Ukraine. This brings the figure up to €2.2 billion. This is our overall overseas development aid budget. The specific international development budget is €810 million.

Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Business of Joint Committee (27 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: I thank the Deputy. I appreciated that. Regarding the expenses of Irish Aid and development, it is all contained in the Irish Aid report. I am more than happy to furnish her and the committee with the most up-to-date report, which will give a breakdown of exactly where we spend our money through our large-scale international Irish NGOs, embassies and partnerships with the United Nations...

Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Business of Joint Committee (27 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: I thank the Senator for that. The ethos driving our work in Irish aid is to reach the furthest behind first, that is, the most vulnerable people not just in a geographic sense but in the challenges life has befallen them through no fault of their own. This is what justifies the work. I was very taken by the Senator's comment that this is a role, a brief and a Department that has an...

Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Business of Joint Committee (27 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: I thank the Senator for that. Regarding the reports of Russia bombing humanitarian aid - I think it was in the Irish Independent this morning - this is not the first time. It is very clear, and we all recognise, that Vladimir Putin is using hunger as a tool of war. He is attacking medical facilities and energy sources, and I have no doubt he is, quite simply, committing war crimes. We...

Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Business of Joint Committee (27 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: Anecdotally, they have increased in the context of the sheer level of activity. We would have seen this with the previous Presidency and they were going up under Other Presidencies also. One thing we have seen anecdotally is an increased number of applications under the foreign birth register for Irish passports, which is often a tell-tale sign. It is something we will keep a close eye on,...

Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Business of Joint Committee (27 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: I thank Senator O'Reilly. I will not get to reply to all of his questions but it is worth mentioning HIV and AIDS. They are very much not in the past tense. They are still very real. Even in this jurisdiction, infection rates increased over the past two years. One of the biggest issues in sub-Saharan Africa is the sheer prevalence of undetected cases of HIV and AIDS. We have had great...

Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Business of Joint Committee (27 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: This is an important point, because it is not just an online consultation. The consultation has not yet officially opened. Just by way of information, our diaspora strategy lapses in December this year and we will launch a new one in April. The task given to me by the Tánaiste is to prepare a new strategy reflective of the profiled needs and demands of the Irish diaspora today, which...