Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)

While I will focus my remarks primarily on the international development side of my brief, it is fitting that I commence by paying tribute to our late dear friend and colleague, Senator Billy Lawless. I was lucky to be in Chicago at the weekend and I spent some time with his son, Billy Jnr. I spent something else in The Gage, but we will leave that between me and him. It was brilliant to remember in that great city a great friend and colleague who I had the pleasure of sitting beside in this House for over four years. I was lucky to sit in on the statements and tributes beforehand. Every word uttered was utterly deserved. Billy is sadly missed by us all, but he has left a real legacy here and in the United States. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

I thank the Seanad for inviting me to speak on my responsibilities as Minister of State with responsibility for international development, a central focus of Ireland’s foreign policy. I will start by considering the global context. International development is facing an existential crisis. This is partly driven by cuts to official development assistance, ODA, by a number of significant donor countries. The humanitarian, health and education sectors are among those hardest hit. Humanitarian aid is projected to decline by up to 36%, assistance for health will drop to levels last seen in the mid-2000s and ODA to education is projected to decline by between 18% and 22% between 2023 and 2025. The cuts will have a disproportionately negative impact on the least developed countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. This will significantly affect Ireland’s international development programme given the thematic and geographic focus of our work.

The crisis is much deeper than a financial one as countries consider the purpose and definition of development assistance, the need to reform the UN system, the global push-back on gender equality and persistent levels of food insecurity and malnutrition. This is also emerging as an issue of trust for many developing countries, which are also often constrained by crippling debt levels. I assure Members that it remains a whole-of-government priority for Ireland to play our part.

In budget 2026, the Government provided €840.3 million for the international development assistance programme managed by the Department of foreign affairs. This is an increase of €30 million on 2025 and represents the highest ever level of funding for the Irish Aid programme. This is a clear sign of Ireland's commitment to working in partnership to save and improve lives around the world. We can be proud that Ireland remains committed to the fight to end poverty and hunger. The Government delivers this support through our bilateral development programme, channelled through Irish embassies, civil society and humanitarian and multilateral organisations, including the United Nations.

lreland’s international development programme has evolved in terms of its scale and approach since its establishment by the late Dr. Garret FitzGerald in 1974, but one constant has been our focus on delivering for those furthest behind first.

It is important to note that there has been a change globally in terms of where those living in extreme poverty are located. Increasingly, they are found in fragile and conflict-affected locations, with these contexts home to a quarter of the world’s population, but almost three quarters of those considered the extreme poor.

When we talk about reaching the furthest behind, we also need to think about disability inclusion. We have made significant progress in this area but we cannot overlook the grave challenges ahead, especially the risk of the erosion of the rights of persons with disabilities. Ireland has invested in maternal and newborn health since the very first days of our aid programme. Since my appointment as Minister of State, I have sought to continue to advance interventions in this area in Irish Aid programme countries. I have seen at first hand the positive impact that Ireland’s investment in the area has realised on my visits to sub-Saharan Africa, especially in Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Sierra Leone. We continue to support this area of work because even now, over 700 women in poor countries die each day from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth.

Sometimes very simple interventions can have a huge impact on whether a woman or her newborn can survive delivery. In Tanzania, we fund training along with boots, coats and torches for health workers so they can get to pregnant women in hard-to-reach locations and ensure they receive the care they need. One area of maternal health that I believe demonstrates in practical terms the significant impact that Ireland is having is in regard to pre-eclampsia. This is a treatable but potentially fatal condition to both a mother and her infant. Pre-eclampsia causes 46,000 maternal deaths every year and 500,000 miscarriages or stillbirths. Ireland has provided €4 million to the Clinton Health Access Initiative in Mozambique, working in partnership to increase the early detection of treatable conditions such as pre-eclampsia. Ireland is also supporting the use of innovative technology to diagnose pre-eclampsia in pregnant women. Early detection is essential to facilitate treatment. In 2024, Ireland helped train more than 450 maternal health workers and screen over 115,000 pregnant women for pre-eclampsia. Our support helped save 5,000 mothers in one year.

Gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls remains a central priority for Ireland, as we deliver on our commitment in A Better World, to increase funding for women’s organisations, channelled through support to UN agencies and NGOs but also in targeted partnerships. We place a particular focus on advocating for a survivor-centred approach to tackling gender-based and conflict-related sexual violence. We work with many valued partners, both civil and bilateral, to ensure that survivors have access to non-discriminatory, trauma-informed legal and sexual and reproductive health services. Our embassies directly provide support to programmes preventing and responding to gender-based violence. For example, the Rainbo initiative, which I had the opportunity to visit while in Sierra Leone, supports over 50,000 young girls in their journey to healing from traumatic experiences through access to much-needed health and recovery services.

Unfortunately, in recent years, there has been a growing pushback against human rights norms, particularly those related to women’s rights, gender equality and the rights of LGBTQI+ persons. Not only does this pose a risk to global progress on issues like sexual and reproductive health and rights, it has begun to unravel decades of effort that secured gender mainstreaming across global policy agendas and has the potential to curtail achievement of the equality ambitions central to the SDGs. I see it as essential that global gains made in gender equality are protected against the growing backlash and undermining of the rights of women and girls.

Ireland consistently ranks among the top 20 donors globally in terms of total humanitarian support and is recognised as a principled donor providing assistance based on need to the most severe and underfunded crises. lreland’s funding for humanitarian response has increased steadily in recent years, reaching approximately €330 million in 2024 across Government, including EU and multilateral contributions. The level of our humanitarian assistance is expected to reach at least this amount in 2025.

The most visible impact of increased conflict can be seen in displaced populations and the unprecedented level of need for humanitarian assistance. We have witnessed the unfolding of a humanitarian catastrophe of staggering proportions in Gaza. At the same time, years of conflict in Sudan continue to cause one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent memories. I note the various contributions in recent days of Senators seeking a debate on Sudan and I must underline that Ireland's commitment of over €14 million there this year will be at least matched again next year as the situation unfolds to become even worse, to be quite frank. The situation on the ground in Ukraine continues to be extremely challenging, particularly as the country faces another winter and increased attacks on energy. We are witnessing a situation where the number of people globally who require humanitarian assistance is estimated at 305 million but shrinking finance means that only a third of people in need this year will be targeted.

All of this is taking place against the background of the existential threat of climate change. Ireland remains on track to reach the target of providing at least €225 million in climate finance per year to developing countries by 2025. Adaptation is the main focus of Ireland’s climate finance and support, particularly in least-developed countries and small island developing states.

Ireland has been a long-standing champion of global efforts to reduce hunger and malnutrition and given our own history of famine, that should be of no surprise to anyone in this House. We continue to play a leading role internationally in nutrition and have been consistent and successful in bringing others to the table to support initiatives. The Nutrition for Growth summit in Paris earlier this year saw bilateral donors, UN agencies, the EU and others come together to make combined pledges of $28 billion. At this event, we delivered a very ambitious pledge to spend €250 million annually for four years to address hunger and malnutrition, a pledge we will deliver on. Ireland is providing €50 million over three years for child-wasting through our partners the WHO, UNICEF and Concern, to save the lives and improve the health of severely malnourished children in ten countries in Africa. This initiative improves healthcare, supports social protection and addresses the root causes of child malnutrition.

Working through civil-society organisations is also one of Ireland's principal delivery mechanisms for official development aid, ODA, with over €269 million in funding allocated to partners in 2024. We have also made sure to bring this message to the global stage. Through this year, since my appointment, I attended the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in Seville, Spain. I also had the honour of being one of the first Irish Ministers to attend the G20 under the South African presidency this year. We have also been present at the United Nations General Assembly in September and next week, I travel to Brazil for the climate-related Conference of the Parties, COP30.

In conclusion, before other Senators come in - and I will respond to all their points individually - I want to make a point really clear. Other countries are cutting their development programmes; we are increasing ours. Development should not just be seen as a cost or an outlay. It is an investment. It is very much an investment in targeting the root causes of the very issues that come before us in our constituency clinics every week, everything from energy insecurity and food or grocery prices to irregular migration and genuine security threats. They all emerge from an unstable global south. It is now more important than ever that we take that message. When other countries are cutting and we do not see the Make Poverty History marches or the level of public buy-in we may have seen 20 years ago, now is exactly the time when countries like Ireland need to stand up and ensure our values are heard on the global stage. We continue to reassure the global south that we stand with it.