Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements Dail Éireann — 2026-01-27 ============================================================ Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central It is a fair point. When you attend these meetings, you see the enormous impact of climate on many African countries, resulting in migration, economic disruption and significant disruption of food production systems. The area of mitigation and adaptation is one we need to focus on more urgently, globally and in Ireland. I will talk to the Minister on the specific issues the Deputy raised. If you look at the weather over the past while, it is changing. Climate is changing. The ground is saturated. It is a serious issue. After Storm Éowyn we did a fundamental review of certain areas - power corridors and so on - and brought in legislation to clarify powers of EirGrid and the ESB vis-á-vis landowners and to have a comprehensive solution to that. There were also generators for Irish Water, generators for community hubs and stronger resourcing of community-based organisations to develop greater resilience on the ground, given the severity of storms that have happened and that are coming our way. Storm Chandra is the latest manifestation of that and serious flooding has resulted from it. The US President did not turn up at G20, although he met with President Ramaphosa earlier in the White House. I had good meetings with President Ramaphosa during our visit to South Africa. There is a degree of self-confidence in the South African approach. South Africa invited Ireland, which speaks volumes for the Irish position on the issues Deputy Boyd Barrett raised. Despite what gets said in the House, South Africa was minded to invite Ireland because of the role we play globally. We are serious. Our officials attended about 130 meetings. Our Ministers did as well. We took it very seriously. We engaged constructively. There is a range of issues like agriculture; anti-corruption; culture; development; digital economy; disaster risk reduction - our officials, the sherpas, were working on that area; education; employment; empowerment of women; energy transitions; environment and climate sustainability; health; research and innovation; tourism; and trade and investment. There is a variety of workshops throughout the year. The debt burden on developing countries was probably the most critical issue that emerged at the G20 summit. It was raised by a lot of African nations. The G20 leaders' declaration acknowledges that debt vulnerabilities, along with other factors, can constrain countries' fiscal space and undermine their ability to deal with poverty and inequality and their capacity to invest in growth and development. Interest payments on public debt have more than doubled over the past decade for low-income countries. It hampers their capacity to lift people out of poverty. There is a need for multilateral development banks to develop more liberal policies in respect of that. The commitment to empowering women and girls and to urgently removing social and economic barriers to gender equity was reaffirmed by the G20 summit. Then there is a whole range of other issues in terms of food security. On the Board of Peace, we met the European Union last week. Obviously, we have very significant concerns in terms of its broad remit. What Europe and Ireland are interested in is the application to Gaza and whether there is a role for the EU in respect of the second phase of the peace process within Gaza. All of the hostages have now been released. I spoke to the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority last week in Davos and he said the most immediate need is shelter. There is an absolutely urgent need in Gaza for shelter. He believes aid is coming in but it is in a very haphazard way in the sense that a lot of basic vital stuff like proteins and that is not coming in to the degree that is necessary. We need a more comprehensive approach. I had a very brief meeting with Tom Fletcher, and a number of Irish officials are doing everything they can to contribute and to help. That is an area on which we are very focused in terms of our engagement with the US both at European and Irish level. Deputy Shane Moynihan again raised the issue of the EU-India trade agreement. Diversification of markets is the key and the opening up of new markets with a view to benefiting world trade more generally, but also our own country. We are a small exporting country. As we export 90% of what we produce, instinctively trade deals are better for us in that scenario. Taking drink products alone, such as whiskey and so on, the tariffs are enormous now. After a trade deal, they come way down. That is very good news for producers of that kind. Obviously, we can go through it sector by sector later, but it will be significant. --- 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/2026-01-27/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:01+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-01-27