Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank everyone who presented. It is helpful. As the Chair alluded to, what we are discussing is provided for in the Standing Orders for committees. This is the first time the committee has had a good run at nailing down the areas we and the Departments we are shadowing are responsible for. Social protection is an interesting case study in that is it probably the headline issue and the point at which most of the SDGs the Department is asked to track come into play. However, we also have rural and community development and, crucially, the islands.

I will start with the islands. They are an interesting case study of the central notion that we should try to reach the furthest behind first. Clearly, the islands are geographically more distant from the rest of us than many places are. When I was looking through the SDGs I thought might be relevant, I realised that education and childcare come up repeatedly. I know from visiting John and people on Bere Island that childcare is a real issue. One thing that jumped out at me relates to equality and the use of enabling technology, particularly information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women. We heard many stories about one person in a couple having to take a step back from work when children are young because there are not adequate childcare facilities on the islands. For people who are looking to do remote and blended work, there is often one broadband connection point on an island. This is an interesting study in how the SDGs do not apply in a universal or homogenous way across society. There is a specific role for applying the SDGs to people on the islands and people from minority communities such as Travellers and ensuring we are doing the central piece of reaching the furthest behind first.

Social Justice Ireland and Coalition 2030 have both done valuable work in this space. The Social Justice Ireland year-on-year report is important to keeping awareness of the SDGs front and centre in people's minds. I hope they will not mind if some of my questions are slightly challenging. I want to dig down into the specifics.

My first question is to Ms Carmody of Coalition 2030. I want to look at the idea of the availability of disaggregated data as it is pivotal for making decisions. I have been looking through the section of the Central Statistics Office, CSO, website on the SDGs which is comprehensive. Much of the CSO data is front and centre in the voluntary national review, VNR. It is the linchpin we hang the VNR on. Coalition 2030 made a submission to the VNR as did the all-party Oireachtas group. The CSO website is quite detailed. I clicked into the section on SDG 1 data. Each of the sub-goals and sub-targets is provided for across regions and across the year. Looking at the amount of data available on the CSO website, what disaggregated data would Coalition 2030 like to see more of? Is it for example a breakdown by gender? Where does it see the deficiencies in data?