 I see such a large crowd here. It's a testimony to I think the interest in our speaker today, Minister Joe McHugh. This is the part of the series sponsored by Irish Aid called Development Matters. It's a series that has been going on for the last number of years. It's a really important part of our programme every year, where we bring top quality speakers about development issues, and if you like, expose their views to the public and expose our views to those speakers. So that's part of it. So I particularly want on this occasion to acknowledge the contribution that Michael Gaffey has made, the current Director-General of Irish Aid, who will be moving on to be Ambassador to the Irish in Geneva, the Irish permanent representation in Geneva. Just also to acknowledge a couple of other people who are here, Nora obviously is a really important part of our membership, of our development group here, but Peter Parr, who is currently a former Aid Minister and is now Head of UNICEF, and a particular welcome to Barry Andrews, who will be taking over this seat as of next Monday, and Barry has again a distinguished record as both Minister for Children and also as CEO of GOAL. So with that by way of background, Joe McHugh was appointed Minister of State for the Diaspora and International Development in May 2016. So he's had a very active year in learning about these two important portfolios. He was Minister for State with Special Responsibility for Gale Talk to Affairs and Natural Resources from 2014 to 2016, and we all know how in the course of that he mastered the Irish language, so congratulations on that. He previously held the position of Chairperson of the Joint Arroctus Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. He served as Co-Chair of the British Irish Parliamentary Assembly. He was first elected to the DAWL in the 2007 general election, having served in Channeler and for five years as Finlay Gale spoke to a person on Community Rural Gale Talk and Marine Affairs. It's a great pleasure to welcome you and we quote what you have to say. Thank you, Tom. It's an absolute pleasure being here and I'd like to acknowledge in the first instance a couple of former colleagues, Peter and Barry. I didn't have the pleasure nor of sitting in the DAWL alongside you, but we did have an opportunity to have a meeting in 2008 in Denver, Colorado at a certain convention and it's great to see you again. You mentioned the Good Friday Agreement Committee there. Tom, I will acknowledge somebody, I see Peter Glennon here representing the US Embassy. I just want to acknowledge all the work that you did and your colleagues did during my tenure and the work you continue to do in relation to that. Tom, you're moving on. You said downstairs you're going to be kept busy when you do move on, but I just want to acknowledge your contribution and the role that you have played and no doubt your work will continue under the capable hands of Barry into the future as well. As of today is a significant day. Somebody has got the letter that Theresa May has sent on their iPhone somewhere. I haven't seen it yet, but obviously Article 50 has been triggered and I know that will bring its own challenges in relation to the future contribution, future collaboration, but one thing I would say on it is I met with the British Ambassador a couple of months ago and I certainly in my capacity as Minister for International Development will continue to have a focus at both the European Union level, but also in our connections with the British in relation to collaboration at International Aid and I'll be meeting pretty Patel next week as well to continue those conversations. I am pleased that I, Regé, is represented here today. I think Michael Gaffey is somewhere in the building. I don't know if he's in the room. Is he in the building, Rose? He's down the back. Yeah, the bad boys down the back, Michael. I just want to acknowledge Michael and his own leadership with Irish Aid and that, you know, that period of time that I've been working as Minister of International Development. Michael, you've been both an inspiration and also you've helped me develop a good insight into the great, great work that's going on at an Irish Aid level, but also the collaboration you have with our partners at NGOs and all the other stakeholders. So I'd like to acknowledge Michael and his role that he'll continue to play when you move on to Geneva. That's all public, isn't it, Michael? We can say that, yeah. So just in relation to the Develop Matter series of lectures, I'm glad to be here, I've had a slightly wider wide canvas in me short time. I remember getting the phone call from Andy Kenney to be Minister of Diaspora and International Development and the first thing I thought was, how do I explain this to my family? Because, as you know, Diaspora is pretty global as is International Development. So it was a bit of a balancing act. The following phone call after the teacher's phone called to my family to explain how do we balance that. But it was in 48 hours I was on a plane to Istanbul, to the World Humanitarian Summit. And just to be present at that summit, along with President Higgins and his leadership to see his leadership firsthand and his enthusiasm and inspired, his inspiration and also his motivation in relation to all things humanitarian and development. It said to me within the first 48 hours of my role in the position of International Development that not alone have the Irish contributed, not alone do the Irish have a footprint. But the Irish will continue to play a very dominant and lead role in all these enormous challenges that we face with. And we're all aware of pain, loss, conflict. We're all aware of the human tragedies internationally and globally. But what it said to me within the first 48 hours of this job was, we will continue to play a leading role in relation to our contribution and also to use the word that was used recently at the meeting in Limerick with the missions back at the beginning of January. That authenticity, where there is a trust, where people do trust the Irish in relation to our motivation, in relation to international work. So that was within the first 48 hours. But what I wanted to do was to get a feel for some of the work in Africa. An enormous privilege in meeting with wonderful women and children from South Sudan in a transfer station in Ajimani on the South Sudanese border. And what that said to me quite clearly, one word, there's still hope. People have hope. People still hope that one day they'll go back to their country. And similarly in the Zatari camp in Jordan, when I met Syrians a couple of weeks ago, the statistic is 14 out of 15 Syrians want to go home. There is that hope that eventually they will be back in their home soil. So obviously there's massive challenges internationally at a number of levels in order to make that happen. But it's a part to point out that when we are faced with, I suppose, a number of sort of despairing realities internationally, the people themselves, the 65 million people that are displaced, the 21 million people that find themselves in refugee status, or the 10 million children under 18 years of age that are displaced because of our refugees because of conflict, we still have a duty and I know the Irish will continue to respond to that. In relation to the figures, David Milliment pointed out that sometimes we come numb to these figures, you know, 65 million, it's just a figure. And all those individuals and those individual circumstances, it's very hard to turn those figures into a reality. But I think it's important to emphasize, Irish people get it. Irish people continue to understand that there is a need. And while the photograph on the Greek beach of the young boy that was found dead and washed up on the shore was one that created a massive clamour in the media, Irish people up to that point, they still understood that we've got a massive challenge here and we have to address that challenge. And it's reflected in our contribution financially. If you think of the economic crisis going back to 2011, during that crisis, when there was a lot of cutbacks and different budgetary sections and I mean, I was in government at the time and you would have felt the full wrath of, I've certainly felt the full wrath of my own constituents in Donegal when you were making reductions in different areas from disabilities to carers grants. And still during that period, 2011 up to 2016, the Irish taxpayer still delivered 4.5 billion in overseas aid. That there was never a single reduction in that amount. That doesn't still satisfy the ambition to go to 0.7. We're still a long way off the 0.7, but obviously that 4.5 billion over that period of time is significant and it says a whole lot about the Irish people and the Irish people's investment in trying to do the right thing internationally. Since the, somewhat in Istanbul, I have been wrestling with the question of where the balance lies between crisis and challenges, between progress and failure. In other words, is there a strong shared purpose in addressing the world's problems? Or is there instead a free and consensus on how to tackle these issues or we're still a growing disagreement on whether to tackle these issues? The first issue I'd like to address is the humanitarian challenge. We are facing an unprecedented humanitarian situation globally. The work that Irish aid does in its collaboration is there is an inextricable link between humanitarian and development. And I think maybe what we need to do as a country, I think we have to reflect over the last 40, 50 years. And if you think on where we've come as a country in terms of empowerment of women, education as a vehicle towards better lifestyles for an enormous number of families in this country. And that was over a short period of time, 40, 45 years. So if you think on where we've come in, we have to remain very focused that we can still contribute and use our experience and use that template as a possibility for other countries that are struggling. And I was speaking to Eamon there, Eamon Meachon, in the work that they're doing, the trochre, for example, are doing in Beirut. And I got to say a number of Syrian families, a number of Palestinians, you're still working on that empowerment model of trying to develop the people themselves and their respective countries. The same was happening in Karamogia and Uganda with concern, where they were very focused on empowering and creating leaders and developing leaderships at a community level. And we have to take that model because if we continue to look at humanitarian and development money as contributions, if we still look at it as if we're, is it a way of facilitating short term problems or are we looking at the long term? But I would like to acknowledge all the groups, and even to come back to this at Harry Camp in Jordan, to see all the agencies, to see two hospitals in a 5.3 kilometre square environment with 80,000 Syrian people in a camp in Zatari, two hospitals, a number of schools, and to see Syrian teachers teaching Syrian children, that certainly gives me hope. The scale of the crisis compels us to ask fundamental questions. While we are addressing it, have we failed in tackling the main drivers of this crisis? Intractable conflict, vulnerability of certain populations, climate change, generational poverty, how do we make the difficult choices between providing ever-increasing assistance to people caught in humanitarian emergencies or sustaining our development programs in order to have longer term impact? And I know there are concerns in relation to Brexit, there are concerns in relation to the new administration the United States in terms of commitment, so I am aware and I am conscious of all these challenges. But we still have to have hope as a base, as a cornerstone for work. To hear from the Syrian people gives me hope, and I think what we have to do, we also have to do, with a massive role to play in this country, we have to reflect the incredible generosity of spirit in this country. I am going to be parochial in using the example in the show, an event recently, Patsy Tallins Changemakers Project, where there has been an open hearted, open door welcome to Syrian families in Cardona. Are we doing enough to highlight that? Are we doing enough to highlight the fact that there are people very, very willing and very happy to take in people obviously in a managed way? So I think we need to look at ways of highlighting the good stuff and I know the SDGs are a big part of it, Peter you mentioned it downstairs, and we are getting closer to the implementation stage, but I think we don't have to convince anybody in Ireland about doing the right thing because of our connections internationally, because of our footprint, because of our missionary work, because of all the great work done down the decades from priests and nuns internationally. We have a footprint and we have an understanding and we have to articulate that a wee bit more and a wee bit better. Up the road, Port Marnock Secondary School, Proud of Secondary School's children, not children, teenagers, they're developing apps for the local authority in Lesotho, so they're working with local government in Lesotho and developing apps, digital mapping for that country through a secondary school, so it's about being smart, it's about being clever, and it's about as opposed to my job as a politician to articulate those. I am extremely concerned about the worsening humanitarian situations in the northeast of Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen, famine has been declared in parts of South Sudan in recent weeks and the UN is calling for urgent action to avoid famine in Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen, and myself and Michael started the conversation around possible visit to South Sudan. I'm very, very keen to do that and I'm very, very open to working with our different partners and making that programme number one the reality but also most importantly a fruitful journey as well in terms of what we can do. Other crises understandably grab headlines in the focus of the international community, others tend to be forgotten and underfunded. A key priority of Ireland's humanitarian assistance has been to pay the special attention to the forgotten and underfunded crisis. Since 2012 Ireland has provided more than 100 million in humanitarian assistance to the Horn of Africa region alone, provided almost 6 million in humanitarian assistance to Yemen since the conflict began in 2015 and we intend to maintain similar levels of support in 2017. But can I just say in relation to used Jordan as an example and also Uganda, I think we need to do more to acknowledge the great role that's been played by these individual governments, the people in Jordan, the citizens in Uganda, for the pressure that they're coming under enormous pressure. For example when I was in Uganda there were half a million people, there were half a million refugees in Uganda last July. That figure now has grown to 750,000 in a very, very short period of time. So it goes back to the root cause, the underlying reasons for conflict but a lot of these countries are coming under pressure. Jordan has 25% of their population, total population under refugee status and the land is fine out as these countries are finding out and we need to be very conscious of that but what we have to do at every stage at every level is to acknowledge the work that they are doing. The UN Security Council I want to mention is one of the many reasons we are seeking election to the UN Security Council is because of the opportunity we have to focus not only on global humanitarian needs but also on the peaceful resolution of the violence that is fueling a humanitarian crisis. Supporting the peaceful resolution of conflict is a cardinal foreign policy priority for Ireland, our approach encompasses conflict prevention, resolution, mediation and peace building efforts. We have our own story to tell, we're a country that has come from conflict to peace. Peace is never an end game, it's a process and we have to continue and continue to work hard at it, our own peace process in Northern Ireland, it's still a fragile process but it's something that we can point to internationally that has been a positive. We have engaged in lessons sharing from Northern Ireland in the context of conflicts and peace process in Colombia, Ukraine, Turkey and the Middle East and I want to acknowledge our Irish Defence Forces as well, I did great privilege of meeting the Defence Forces in South Lebanon a number of weeks ago and I would like to acknowledge their approach now in the new recruitment drive to have more women on there as part of the Defence Forces because there are cultural challenges in different countries and I think that's a good thing and I would like to acknowledge their work in that regard. It is clear that we must do more and do better. I mentioned the World Humanitarian Summit earlier where UN members say it's all made commitments to go further and we certainly won't be found wanting in that. The impetus from the summit was looked at initiatives such as the Grand Bargain must be sustained and as donors we must continue to work together to maximise the resources available and the effectiveness of our action in order to meet those urgent needs. I'm really, really appreciative of being here, of being invited. I certainly want to hear from you as to what we can be doing better because there is no magic formula here. We have an enormous crisis but I just go back to my initial point and I said it in the Shana today. Ireland has such a role to play in maintaining that leadership role and when I think back to President Higgins, when he made a contribution in Istanbul, female African leaders stood up again with standing ovation and that wasn't just because he was saying nice things. He was saying very, very challenging things but a lot of countries are looking to Ireland to continue in that leadership role and I certainly would like to play my part as well. So go to Mila Maik.