Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Ms Keatinge before the committee. It is nothing personal that members of the committee will have to leave for priority questions in the Dáil.

I agree with the key recommendations and the need for a whole-of-government approach to deliver the SDGs and for the Committee on Budgetary Oversight to proof the budget each year.

Is Ms Keatinge proposing a model for the stakeholders forum that can better track the Government's record on delivering the SDGs, to spread the message about them, or both, or to push the Government to act on the SDGs?

Ms Keatinge pointed out that public awareness of the SDGs is very weak, weaker even than awareness of the millennium development goals, MDGs. Why is that?

Ms Keatinge said she struggled to see that any of Dóchas' suggestions were taken on board by the Minister, Deputy Naughten, the voice of civil society is not being heard, and policy coherence is absent. Is Ms Keatinge saying that we are going through the motions on many of these issues?

I am struck immediately by goal No. 14 and conserving and sustainably using our oceans and seas. We know about the use plastic. There is supposedly an island in the Atlantic Ocean the size of Britain and France. The use of single-use plastics is strangling and destroying the planet. We all use our seas so there needs to be a global approach. Five trillion grocery bags are used globally each year. Ten million plastic bags are produced per minute. This is a flavour of the challenges. Microbeads are going into the food chain. It is something we cannot do on our own, but we have a responsibility to act, as people who are sharing the planet. Is there a role for Dóchas and others in this? Is there a role for the Government taking a lead by banning microbeads? There seems to be a reluctance there.

Part of the difficulty is that we are signing up to this but the follow-up is very slow. Ms Keatinge said the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was better and much more advanced at engaging. One of my questions relates to the business and human rights implementation group. It was something that was agreed to be introduced in 2014 but still has not been. I am concerned that its role would be to guide State-owned companies and the Government in human rights implementation but, at the same time, for instance, the ESB is buying coal from the Cerrejon mine in Colombia. The lands are like something on the moon, the indigenous people are being forced off their land and the water is being destroyed. We have signed up to sustainable goals and Irish companies are involved in the likes of that. There is a contradiction there.

The European Commission admitted that EU development funding is tied aid. Does that concern Ms Keatinge? That issue has come up at this committee on a number of occasions. Would she agree that Irish ODA cannot be fully untied if it is giving significant amounts to EU development funding which may end up as tied aid? A total of 30% of Ireland's ODA is spent on EU development funding, yet the accountability and transparency around this funding is very low when compared with the rest of our ODA spending. Does that concern Ms Keatinge?

Is Ms Keatinge concerned that the EU development funding is shifting towards policies aimed at rewarding undemocratic and autocratic governments in the northern half of Africa to encourage them to ensure that those seeking refuge do not make it to Europe? I am talking about Libya and some of the failed states.