Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I think I answered a pretty broad-ranging group of questions. I dealt with about a dozen different issues. If the Senator has specific questions on the two matters she raised, I said I would come back to her specifically. I cannot be expected to give her an answer when I do not have the details in front of me.

On Senator Mullen's question on an African agrifood fund, we have such a fund. When I was in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine we set one up, in conjunction with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. We are putting Irish taxpayers' money into grant aiding Irish food companies to set up locally in Africa, employ local people and build local management capacity. There are a number of examples of companies which have used that finance to set up successfully.

We initially focused on Kenya, but also looked at Uganda and Ethiopia. We would like to do a lot more of that. The concept around funding agrifood development to help countries make the agricultural progress we have made over the past 50 years within the next ten to 15 years is exactly what Ireland would like to do. When one sees a significant expansion of the Irish Age programme, one will see a lot of extra money going into education and gender equality issues, in particular the education of girls.Additional funding will be also be provided for agriculture and agrifood and the links between development and some of the generational issues we face, particularly on the continent of Africa in areas such as water, food security and rapid population growth. These issues will continue to create severe pressures.

I spoke this morning on the future of Europe. In my view, the big idea for Europe in the area of external global policy should be to establish a new and much more ambitious and structured political relationship with Africa through the African Union. I hope Ireland will be a leader in that debate.