MINISTER FOR Overseas Development Peter Power has warned against comparing aid given by the Government to Pakistan with the contribution made by the people.
He was responding yesterday to Labour TD Michael D Higgins, who noted that the €2.5 million given by the Irish people in individual contributions was more than the €2 million provided by the Government. TDs urged the Government to give further aid at an emergency meeting of the Oireachtas foreign affairs committee.
Mr Power said it was very important not to categorise the response to the worsening flooding crisis in those terms. He said the State’s humanitarian response had changed, especially since the Asian tsunami. Had it not changed, he added, he could possibly be coming into the committee announcing €10 million to €15 million in aid.
The key lesson to emerge from the tsunami, he said, was the absolute necessity of multilateral agencies – the UN, Unicef, the Office for the Co-ordination of European Affairs and the World Health Organisation – to be able to draw on money immediately.
Those agencies had drawn on the central emergency response fund within hours of the disaster. Mr Power said that the NGOs and aid agencies had received more than €100 million from the Government last year.
The Government had also placed emergency funding with aid agencies for circumstances similar to Pakistan and that had been drawn down.
Mr Power said government aid programmes would come into their own within three or four weeks, when the cameras were removed from Pakistan. Ireland would be contributing significantly to a donor conference.
The initial funding announced by the Government was on a per capita basis significantly higher than many other countries.
Mr Power said he would not travel immediately to Pakistan because of the advice to ministers “not to arrive in the first couple of weeks and months where you have ministers tripping over themselves in front of cameras”.
He said a member of the Dublin Fire Brigade would be deployed to Pakistan to help the relief effort.
Pakistan’s ambassador to Ireland Naghmana Hashmi said the immediate challenge was to ensure there was adequate food and shelter for victims.
While the initial international response was slow and disappointing, no one could have imagined the huge humanitarian disaster that unfolded.
A number of TDs asked the ambassador about Pakistan’s high military spending.
Ms Hashmi said the capacity of a nation to deal with such a catastrophe could not be judged by the yardstick of its defence and strategic requirements. She urged members of the committee to “understand the critical importance of the stability and territorial integrity of Pakistan”. All the resources possible had been withdrawn from the navy, air force and military for the rescue effort.