Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses very much for coming in and presenting, and to Mr. McLoughlin who is on the video. It is such an interesting conversation to get the international world view of what is happening and how lucky we are in this country in lots of ways. The thing I most wanted to ask is with regard to the SDGs. They are something everybody has committed to but we have failed to reach targets and we are running against time. We have now put a rescue plan in place. I wanted to ask about having legislation to back it up so we can actually force people to meet targets. For instance, should we be adapting the protocol to give those rights to people with disabilities? We have lovely sayings like "leave no one behind" and "furthest behind first" and that type of thing. They are great words but are they powerful in the sense that this is really happening? Is it happening here in this country? Is it happening on foot of our budget yesterday? That is why I say these are all grand words. I would like to get the witnesses' reaction to that because I am getting tired of the words and I am just wondering if we need a new approach at this stage to force people to actually take on the responsibility to give rights to people who need them.