Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I formally welcome Mr. Donoghue and congratulate him on the work he has done. It is a great privilege for Ireland to have somebody of his stature who has been involved in setting out these 17 principles to be followed. The average man or woman on the street knows nothing about this, and this is the big weakness of these bodies and aims. How do we bring it down to that man, woman and child in order that they understand what is being tried here? The aims are very worthwhile, but there needs to be buy-in. It is the buy-in part that I feel is a bit at sea. We never read about this in our daily newspapers and very seldom do we hear it being discussed on television or radio. What would be the case if somebody went out with a microphone and asked the man or woman on the street whether he or she knew anything about the sustainable development goals? It is a terrible shame, given the amount of work and good being done behind the scenes. The buy-in is the most important thing as we all should appreciate what is trying to be achieved here. Does Mr. Donoghue have any suggestions for a group of politicians such as ourselves as to how we could begin to seek the assistance of the public in trying to get buy-in for this idea?

I have had the pleasure of being in the United Nations. It is out there and does not seem to connect with individual governments. It is never discussed at government level. There are representatives such as Mr. Donoghue, and all of this good work goes on behind the scenes. I do not want people to think of the good work achieved by Mr. Donoghue and his Kenyan colleague and the 17 goals as something about which something had better be done and a report produced. We really have to buy in to this as a society, along with everybody else. This is where a committee such as this, or a parliament such as this, needs to be made aware of what all of this is about. Not alone should there be an annual high level political forum assessing progress but we have to assess progress as a parliament. If I am to learn anything from today's meeting, it is that we as a committee should try to make certain that at least twice a year a couple of hours are put aside in the Seanad and the Dáil to look at how we are doing on these goals. This is the only way I can think of. I ask Mr. Donoghue's opinion on whether there are other ways we could make certain the good work being attempted does not just drift away, and that while people think it is a good idea, they have other things to be doing. I would appreciate Mr. Donoghue's views on this.