Dáil Éireann

DÁIL ÉIREANN AN COMHCHOISTE UM GHNÓTHAÍ EACHTRACHA AGUS TRÁDÁIL JOINT COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND TRADE Dé Céadaoin, 20 Samhain 2013 Wednesday, 20 November 2013 The Joint Committee met at 2.35 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Deputy Seán Crowe, Senator Deirdre Clune, Deputy Bernard J. Durkan, Senator Mark Daly, Deputy Olivia Mitchell, Senator Michael Mullins, Deputy Dan Neville, Senator David Norris, Deputy Maureen O’Sullivan, Senator Jim Walsh. Deputy Brendan Smith, DEPUTY PAT BREEN IN THE CHAIR. 1 BUSINESS OF JOINT COMMITTEE Business of Joint Committee Chairman: We will begin with the draft minutes of the meeting of 13 November 2013, which have been circulated to all members. Are they agreed? Agreed. Situation in Syria and the Philippines: Discussion with UNICEF Ireland Chairman: I remind members, witnesses and those in the Public Gallery to ensure their mobile telephones are switched off completely for the duration of the meeting as they cause interference with the recording equipment in the committee rooms, even in silent mode. I welcome Mr. Peter Power, the executive director of UNICEF Ireland. He is familiar to all of us, having been a Member of the House for so many years. I think he was elected to the House in 2002, like myself. He is the former Chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Equal- ity, Defence and Women’s Rights and former Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He has just returned from the Philippines this morning. It took about four or five flights to get from Tacloban, where he was based, to Cebu to Manila and finally back to Dublin via Abu Dhabi so I thank him for coming before the committee. I know he is probably in another time zone. This meeting has been arranged for some time but it is very timely. We have all seen the images on our television screens, particularly the aftermath of one of the worst typhoons in liv- ing memory that has devastated many regions of the Philippines, left more than 4,000 people dead and displaced more than four million people. It is quite clear from the television footage that millions of people will need humanitarian assistance. Of course, children are always the victims of these tragedies and that is where UNICEF comes in. It has done a great job so far in highlighting the cause of children, particularly in the aftermath of such tragedies where many children are left orphaned or where many parents are looking for their lost children as a result of the devastation. Mr. Power travelled to the Philippines a number of days ago and has come back this morning. We are delighted to have him here. We will also be discussing the ongoing situation in Syria. Obviously, that is something that has gone off the television screens at the moment but that is what happens with the media. It moves from one incident to another but people are still suffering and very much so in Syria where more than 100,000 people have been killed. Mr. Power will talk about Syria as well. Obviously, the unfolding situation in the Philippines is very much the topic of the moment. I call Mr. Power to make his presentation to the committee. He will also answer questions from members. I welcome Mr. Power and his representative from UNICEF Ireland, Ms Nikita White. Mr. Peter Power: I thank the Chairman and members of the committee for their kind invi- tation to join them to brief them about UNICEF’s operations around the world, but specifically in respect of Syria and most recently in respect of the appalling humanitarian disaster which I witnessed unfolding this week in the Philippines. With the permission of the Chairman and members, I would like to begin with the Philippines typhoon disaster because it is so timely and urgent. This morning I returned to Dublin having spent a week in the Philippines where I witnessed the tragic consequences of perhaps the most violent natural disaster in history. I saw the true magnitude of the effect of this disaster on families and children which will forever change their lives and will haunt me for a lifetime. At 4.30 a.m. on 9 November, typhoon Hai- yan, known in the Philippines as typhoon Yolanda, made landfall with devastating force. Words 2 JOINT COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND TRADE alone cannot convey to this committee the ferocity of this super typhoon even though everyone has seen the photographs and the television images. Typhoon Haiyan is possibly the strongest storm ever to have hit a populated land mass. I wish to convey to the committee the sheer scale of the devastation as seen with my own eyes. It is beyond what members may have seen in the media. I wish to convey how many people and children in particular, have been affected. The sheer numbers alone give some sense of the wide area of devastation and how many are affected. The total population affected is 12.9 million, approximately three times the population of Ireland. The total number of children affected is 5.4 million and the total number of displaced children is 1.7 million. Displaced in this context means that their houses have been destroyed so 1.7 million were rendered homeless overnight. By any measure this is a stagger- ing number of people. The national media in the Philippines reported this morning that 243,000 houses were completely destroyed with an equal number very severely damaged. To put this figure in context, if an equivalent disaster had occurred in Dublin, the entire city would be rendered uninhabitable. Practically every house would be either completely destroyed or uninhabitable. The city of Dublin would be uninhabitable. That is the scale of what I was confronted with this week in the Philippines. Following the enormity of the typhoon, UNICEF immediately initiated its highest level of emergency response, mobilising its global resources and personnel to the region. Before the typhoon hit, UNICEF had 70 personnel on the ground and this number was immediately increased to more than 100 to establish a relief headquarters in the decimated city of Tacloban. I was briefed by our senior team in Tacloban and the massive scale of the relief effort needed became clear. From the air, for hundreds of miles, the devastation was near total. It is estimated that almost 90% of all dwelling houses in the city of Tacloban lie in ruins. I agree with this as- sessment. The destruction is everywhere to be seen. Rubble is piled up two and three metres high across whole swathes of the city. But for the grace of God and the advance weather warn- ings, unlike for the tsunami and the Haiti earthquake, I am convinced the death toll would now be in the hundreds of thousands. The relatively low death toll masks the true scale of the devastation. Many of those who died remain underneath the rubble. The stench of death fills the air to the extent that masks are needed when going around the city. I spoke to survivors, many of whom were still traumatised by the ferocity of this experience. They told me that for the first few days there was practically no water or food and children suffered greatly in the early days. Tacloban is just one city in one region and nine regions of the country were completely devastated by the typhoon. An estimated 5.4 million children have been affected by typhoon Haiyan across the nine regions of the Philippines. An estimated 4.6 million children require psycho-social support and protection against gender-based violence, trafficking and exploita- tion. By 19 November, the number of children displaced has risen to 1.7 million out of a total of 4 million people. UNICEF is supporting the government-led response in co-ordination with other UN agencies and is leading the water and sanitation and hygiene, WASH, programme which is essential in the immediate aftermath of a disaster of this magnitude. UNICEF is also leading child protection,education and nutrition clusters. UNICEF has identified strategic pri- orities and is working to prevent deterioration in the pre-existing levels of mortality, morbidity and malnutrition and to provide shelter and support to displaced populations. Children are growing increasingly vulnerable to water-borne diseases, separation from fam- ily, protection violations such as trafficking, child labour and gender-based violence. UNICEF WASH programme supplies were the first to arrive in Tacloban and at least 200,000 people, 3 Situation IN SYRIA AND THE PHILIPPINES: DISCUSSION WITH UNICEF IRELAND including women and children, have access to safe drinking water as the first water treatment plant is returned to full operating capacity. I saw with my own eyes some of the children tak- ing water from public taps which had been repaired by UNICEF in conjunction with US aid. It brought home to me the importance of a public water system. These children told me they had no water for days until this tap was fixed. There have been initial reports of children separated from their families in the Ormoc region and reunification activities are ongoing. There is also growing concern that gender-based violence against women and girls will increase, given the lack of electricity in some areas, particularly in evacuation centres and in makeshift shelters. I did not see any electricity pylons still standing in my tour of the affected areas. Children are also exposed to the danger of physical injuries due to falling debris. With the massive destruction of school infrastructure and day care centres, millions of children are out of school and thousands of teachers have been reported as missing, most likely having fled the area in the days after the typhoon struck.

Load more