Dr. Robert Mooney:

It has already been said very eloquently that on the SDG side Ms Gilmartin began proactive engagement with DPOs earlier this year. The national dialogue programme begins pretty much in earnest in April or May. We very much look forward to building on the success that Ms Gilmartin has already delivered via the SDG programme and actively engaging with DPOs via a number of key mechanisms.

I have mentioned looking at the existing literature insights and key challenges for people. In addition, we will be delivering some of the engagement mechanisms as a dedicated workshop for people with disabilities involving DPOs and others in the sector. This will ensure that mechanisms like our online consultation are accessible, people are aware of this and it is communicated via the right channels. We also need to identify specific categories in our work to understand and identify what those voices are and understand what the specific challenges are.

We are also making space in the national climate stakeholder forums, ensuring we are inviting participants from those groups to participate across a broad range of issues, not specifically talking about issues of disability. It could be about the other issues that people face and what the disability issue is, in and around that space, whether it is transport, built environment or the circular economy.

The insights from all those activities will be analysed and we will be providing iterative interim reports from all our activities throughout the year. This means we will be able to provide short-term feedback to participants to critique what they said and identify the key challenges and the calls to action for policy across a number of areas. We will be providing that back to the policy leads for those areas. It was a very systematic and effective programme in 2022 and we will be building on that in 2023.

I cannot respond to certain specific policy programmes like the circular economy because I am not au faitwith exactly what the plans are there. However, as part of the national dialogue, we will be engaging with people across a full range of climate issues. As I understand it, as part of the local authority climate action plans, there is a very proactive engagement programme being delivered across each local authority level. In addition to those elements, a number of other engagement and public participation programmes will be delivered across the different policies that I have mentioned already.