Dr. Aoibhinn N? Sh?illeabh?in:

The resourcing of the State's response to biodiversity loss was a key focus of members directly from the first meeting. In our second meeting in September, Dr. Eddie Casey, chief economist with the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, addressed the assembly. Professor Kate Raworth, co-founder of the Doughnut Economics Action Lab, also addressed the assembly. We were trying to ensure that we had a diversity of perspectives but what members really latched onto in recommendation 10, which the Deputy highlighted, was our international responsibilities and that if we are only focusing on growth for ourselves as an economy, as he said, that is not necessarily to the betterment of everybody or of the rest of the world. To support those, we have recommendations 33 and 34. That is where members wanted the State to embrace fully the beyond-GDP concept and ensure that the national well-being framework was at the core of economic decisions so that the national well-being framework actually encompasses environment, climate and biodiversity. Let that be the focus rather than simply the GDP number, which can often be skewed, as has been seen.

Again this can be seen as quite progressive on the part of members. Citizens' assemblies in Ireland provide this unusual voice to members of society, a voice that is often ahead of the thinking - no offence - of our policymakers and politicians. That is potentially surprising but in the grand scheme of all the presentations we received where we were told that by buying produce from South America, even chocolate and coffee, we impact on the biodiversity of other places and if we actually buy local, seasonal, organic produce and support our Irish farmers, we will help international biodiversity. That then fed into the conversations regarding how can we do better in this economy. That was the idea that we do not go beyond our boundaries, beyond our means, or push the planet beyond what it can provide for us. That is what we see in recommendations 10, 33 and 34.