Ms Roshin Sen:

On grant funding, the Department of Rural and Community Development probably does more on that side than we do. We do offer a limited amount of grants which we operate. One is under social inclusion initiatives. We do events promoting the UN day for the eradication of poverty which is linked to the SDG for ending poverty. In that case, we provide funding for organisations that are promoting awareness of poverty issues. That is one area where we have grants that are working with SDGs.

The SDG around ending and reducing poverty is very much embedded in the work of everything and anything we do in the Department. In any policy work we do or any considerations we have around reform or change, we always look at their poverty impact. We have mechanisms in place, between using the ESRI’s microsimulation tax and welfare model, to see what impacts it would have in terms of distributional impact assessments. Looking at the poverty impact assessments of policies is embedded in the Department’s work and across Departments. For that SDG of ending poverty, we are very much aware of that mindset. Similarly, around promoting employment, any time there is policy reform, consideration is given to its impact on competitiveness and on work incentives. Those are things we are very much aware of when thinking about policy.

On the SDG indicators, there are some which the EU looks at for the different goals. Target 1.2 relates to the national target, and for Ireland, the main national target in relation to poverty reduction is consistent poverty. We do have other targets in the Roadmap for Social Inclusion. In the national implementation plan for 2022 to 2024, we will look to see if there are other targets we can look at specifically for the SDGs.

The Senator spoke about climate and communities. Something I had not mentioned is that the Department operates the humanitarian assistance programme. Where a household is impacted by something like flooding, which could be something related to climate change, the Department offers services and comes in with immediate help and help with any longstanding issues to their house as a consequence of any climate related issue.