Mr. Ciar?n Lawler:

I thank members of the committee for the invitation to attend to discuss the Department’s progress on the implementation of the sustainable development goals. I am the assistant secretary of the Department of Social Protection with responsibility for corporate affairs. I am joined by my colleague, Ms Roshin Sen, who is the Department’s chief analyst and representative on the senior officials group on the sustainable development goals. I am also joined by Mr. Paul Norris, who is the assistant principal with responsibility for the social inclusion division and is the Department's representative on the sustainable development goals interdepartmental working group.

As noted in the briefing provided to members, in 2015, all United Nations member states adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the focus of which is the 17 sustainable development goals and their 169 targets. In Ireland, a whole-of-government approach has been adopted for implementation of the SDGs, with each Minister having specific responsibility for implementing individual SDG targets related to their ministerial functions.

The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications has overall responsibility for promoting the SDGs and overseeing their coherent implementation across the Government, including the development of the national implementation plans and reporting frameworks. I now will hand over to my colleague, Ms Roshin Sen, who will speak to the committee about the Department of Social Protection’s role in relation to the SDGs.