Humanitarian Aid
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-02
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Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (SF), Cork South-Central

The scale of death and suffering in recent decades in the Congo has been very under-reported. Some estimates suggest that about 6 million people have died since 1998 due to conflict. Conflict in the region has rarely been in abeyance, but it spikes during certain periods. The conflict currently is between the Congolese Government and the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group. It is primarily taking place in Kivu state in the east of the country and in surrounding regions.
Ebola is a horrific and highly transmissible disease. It has already claimed hundreds of lives. It will claim thousands of lives if it continues to spread. The concern is that it will escalate further and that, as a result of the conflict, the authorities will struggle to get to grips with it. Will the Minister of State outline the Department's assessment of the current situation in terms of the outbreak and the extent to which the conflict is adding to it?

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Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-02/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:52:14+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-02