Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Wrafter for his comprehensive speech, which has left us with very few questions to ask. I would like to comment on what Deputy Smith said about coming to the end of the millennium goals and the post-2015 situation. I was pleased to hear Mr. Wrafter say that as a human right, gender equality is fundamental to development.

In establishing the previous millennium goals lip service was also paid to them, yet some goals received greater priority. In addition, where progress was made it was patchy across countries. Goals 3, 4 and 5 were the gender equality ones, including children, where least progress was made. It was definitely because they did not get priority.

Although Mr. Wrafter has partially dealt with this question, to what extent can the Human Rights Council feed into establishing priorities post-2015? The Irish initiatives on child mortality and civil society space, are not 1,000 miles from achieving gender equality. Will Mr. Wrafter concentrate on that or on the broader issues?