Dr. Se?n Healy:

I have a short but important point, which has not been mentioned so far. In terms of the budgetary process and integrating the SDGs into the budget process, the two key Departments where the budget is concerned are the Department of Finance and the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform. There is an issue there that needs to be dealt with. That is the issue of the culture in those two Departments. I am not talking about the Ministers or the politicians. I am talking about the culture in the Departments. In my experience of working with them on budgets for almost 40 years, those Departments have a strong culture with a great capacity for incorporating stuff in rhetoric, but not in reality. What we are looking at in the SDGs are a set of goals that do not have anything remotely close to acceptance or commitment by the policy makers in the Departments. I assume the committee will be speaking with some of those in later sessions. The bottom line is that they can talk the talk, but when it comes to walking the walk and making it part of the budget process the evidence is extremely thin. The challenge there eventually goes back to Government. The Government has to be extremely strong in pushing these. Unfortunately, while there are some strong advocates in Government there is a substantial portion that is not really committed to making these happen. It would require serious Government commitment to ensure they become part of the dialogue that goes on between those two Departments and the line Departments as they would be referred to. This would make sure they are linked and the SDGs get a real role in the decision making.