Chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Pat Breen is this Tuesday beginning a three-day humanitarian visit with Trocaire to Haiti.
Deputy Breen’s itinerary includes a visit to the Institute of Technology and Development in Gressier, a Trocaire partner involved in post-earthquake housing projects. While there he will officially hand over the keys of the new housing units to the beneficiary families of this Trocaire supported inaugural housing project.
Deputy Breen will also visit the Canaan Camp for Internally Displaced persons to see the plight of people still living in tent cities, travel to the Cluny Sister school to see the situation of education in Haiti and support from Irish Cluny sisters for reconstruction work of schools in Haiti and meet with NGOs, EU and UN Representatives and Members of the Haitian Bishops Conference for an overview of the current post earth quake recovery and development efforts.
Before departure, Deputy Breen said, “The 2010 earthquake had a devastating effect on Haiti with more than 230,000 killed, 300,000 injured and 2.1 million left homeless. Two years on from this earthquake, I will be able to see at first hand the status of the reconstruction efforts and hear about the humanitarian challenges that remain.
“Trocaire is a key humanitarian partner for Irish Aid and between 2011 and 2013, Irish Aid provided over €55 million in funding to the organisation for their long term development programmes and humanitarian funding. During the course of this visit, I look forward to seeing the impact that Trocaire is making on the ground in Haiti and the various programmes that they are supporting to help the people of Haiti rebuild their lives.”
A native of Ennis, Colin McGann has been editor of The Clare Champion since August 2020. Former editor of The Clare People, he is a journalism and communications graduate of Dublin Institute of Technology.