Ms Karen Ciesielski:

In respect of the narrative and combating the growth of a negative message around the UN SDGs, I firmly agree with him. There is nothing controversial about wanting to have healthy children, healthy seas and positive well-being for our people. Part of the issue is being stirred up in the culture wars. We try to go back to the basics. The UN is a result of multilateral dialogue. Countries signed up to it as a fundamentally good thing to aspire to. That is where we should focus. We could very easily get distracted fighting a negative message that does not represent the majority of people who agree these are all good things. Having children who are educated and fed is something that we as Irish people take very seriously, and always have.

I wish to revert to the Deputy’s question regarding life on land and SDG 15. According to the most recent EPA state of the environment report, he is absolutely right. We are doing quite poorly in comparison to our fellow EU member states. The state of our rivers and streams is declining and according to the EPA report, we fall short of the water framework directive when it comes to having high-quality and pristine water bodies. We also have very low levels of afforestation. We have declined. We used to have 17,000 ha in the 1990s, and we had 1,650 ha as of 2023.

Of the land that is still being forested, we see that instead of a carbon sink, it is actually on the cusp of becoming a source of carbon emissions, which is not where we want to be at all. There is a fundamental problem with how we are managing our land, sustainable food production and land use. The Deputy is absolutely correct on that. There is time to turn things around. As Mr. McGeady noted, policy coherence lies at the root of proper decision-making. If we were using the SDGs as a policy-making tool we would not be in the situation we are in now, with things still moving in what is clearly the wrong direction when it comes to the natural environment. Some of my colleagues might want to comment.