Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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838. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the amount of overseas development assistance funding provided to date to deal with the Ebola outbreak in West Africa; his plans to provide further funding; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42233/14]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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839. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the commitments made to fund programmes to deal with the Ebola outbreak following the decision of the EU Council to double funding; the level of funding to be provided by his Department, the overall funding by the EU and its member states; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42234/14]

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 838 and 839 together.

I remain deeply concerned about the spread of the Ebola virus in West Africa and the devastating impacts it is having, particularly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

It is clear that the spread of the disease has long-since outpaced the capacity of the three Governments to respond to it and the international community must urgently ensure that the necessary skilled personnel, medical and other facilities are funded, mobilised and deployed to West Africa to deal with the crisis.

Together with our partners in theEuropean Union, Ireland will continue to play its part in the international effort to counter the spread of the Ebola virus. Funding from the European Union and its Member States has now reached more than €900 million.At its meeting on 23-24 October the European Council appointed Commissioner Christos Stylianides as EU Ebola coordinator and called for additional assistance to scale-up the response on the ground, notably with regard tomedical care and equipment, as well as reinforced exit-screening. The Council also welcomed Member States’ commitment to increase financial assistance to €1 billion.

Ireland is providing over €16 million annually in the West African region, directly and through NGOs. Some €10 million is being provided for our development programmes in our partner countries in the region, Sierra Leone and Liberia. These programmes are focused on strengthening the health systems in the two countries, which were already of very poor standard but which have now been overwhelmed, and we have reprogrammed non-essential funding outside the health system directly to the Ebola response.

To date, Ireland has provided direct funding of almost €4 million for Ebola treatment facilities in both Sierra Leone and Liberia, as well as for contact-tracing, community sensitisation and child nutrition programmes.

This figure includes 42 tonnes of humanitarian stocks air-lifted to Sierra Leone and distributed to Ebola-affected households and communities. It also includes a contribution of €1 million, which we approved last week, for the UN Ebola Multi-partner Trust Fund established by the UN Secretary General in September to ensure a coherent contribution by the UN system to the overall response to the Ebola outbreak. The contribution to the Trust Fund will be earmarked for Sierra Leone and Liberia.

We are urgently looking at what more we can do, including through our Embassy in Freetown which has been very active locally in helping to coordinate the fight against Ebola. A flexible approach has been adopted with our NGO partners so that long-term development funding provided to them can, as necessary, be redirected to assist with the Ebola effort. We are keeping in close contact with the NGOs in this context.