Results 4,721-4,740 of 4,806 for speaker:Neale Richmond

Written Answers — Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Overseas Development Aid (13 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: The Government is firmly committed to Ireland’s international development assistance programme and its overriding priority, to reach the furthest behind first. The latest year for which full statistical detail of our Official Development Assistance (ODA) is available is 2023. Detailed preliminary figures for 2024 will be available in the coming months. In 2023, the top ten recipient...

Written Answers — Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Overseas Development Aid (13 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: I propose to take Questions Nos. 267, 265 and 266 together. The Government is firmly committed to Ireland’s international development assistance programme and its overriding priority, to reach the furthest behind first. The budget for Vote 27 of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to manage the Irish Aid programme in 2025 is €810.3 million, the highlest level ever. ...

Written Answers — Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Middle East (13 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: On 2 March the Israeli authorities announced a halt to humanitarian aid entering Gaza. No humanitarian assistance has been allowed in since then. Aid provided by Ireland is impeded by the same restrictions affecting all humanitarian aid to Gaza. Ireland has two consignments of humanitarian aid in Amman, Jordan, awaiting entry to Gaza. They include shelter items for the International...

Written Answers — Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Foreign Conflicts (13 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: Two years of conflict in Sudan have resulted in a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. The Government is gravely concerned by the impact of the conflict on civilians. Widespread violence continues, including reports of atrocities and violations of international humanitarian law. Over 15 million people have been forced to flee their homes and over 24 million people are in acute food insecurity,...

Written Answers — Department of An Taoiseach: Middle East (20 May 2025)

Neale Richmond: As the United Nations reported last week all of Gaza's population of over 2 million people face the risk of famine; one in five face possible starvation. Israel’s continuing blockade of humanitarian and commercial supplies for Gaza is rapidly deepening the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The obstruction of life-saving aid by Israel is a violation of its international obligations and it...

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

Neale Richmond: Preach.

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...

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

Neale Richmond: I will reply on two issues. Where an Irish passport is tampered with, it tends not to be a forged or made-up document. It tends to be a stolen passport which someone uses to try to assume the identity of the owner and by trying to say they look like the person in the photo. That is how good the Irish passport is. The Deputy referred to an incident from ten or 12 years ago. I can assure...

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.