Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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617. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if he will report on the Irish participation in the United Nation's third international conference on financing for development to be held in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29937/15]

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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The Minister of State for Development, Trade Promotion and North-South Cooperation, Sean Sherlock T.D., has been leading the Irish delegation at the International Conference on Financing for Development, from 13 to 16 July in Addis Ababa. The conference is expected to conclude today with the adoption of an agreed outcome document “The Addis Ababa Accord”. The Addis agreement together with agreements on the new global development agenda post-2015, in New York in September, and on climate in Paris in December, will provide the international community with a unique opportunity to shape a new framework for sustainable development for the next fifteen years. The Addis conference is not a pledging conference, and will aim to agree a durable and sustainable financial framework that will guide the mobilisation and use of financial and non-financial resources to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals which will replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted in 2000. The new Goals will be universal, and broader in scope than the MDGs, and they will aim for the elimination of extreme poverty and hunger by 2030. An ambitious, clear and comprehensive agreement at Addis this week will be critical to the success of the post-2015 negotiations at the UN in New York, which are being co-chaired by Ireland.