Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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I again thank Senator Pauline O'Reilly, who has ceded her time so that I can contribute at this committee. I will echo Deputy Leddin's question although I am going to ask it of myself because it would be unfair to ask it of the people here. There is a question as to whether responsibility for the sustainable development goals should sit within the Department of the Taoiseach as opposed to the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. I am not sure how the invitation extended to the witnesses was framed but it is interesting that we have quite a narrow assessment of 19 of the 169 targets on which the Department leads. That comes to my question around the implementation plan and policy map. Does assigning lead Departments for specific sustainable development goals let Departments off the hook in a way? Does it say that the Department should just deal with these 19 of 169? If I read through the 169 targets in detail, which I have done, I would come up with more than 19 subtargets that have relevance to the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. I wanted to ask a question about that. Does the implementation plan adequately tackle that silo effect, which is a natural product of having Departments within Government, which itself is a way to allow Government to run coherently? Are we going far enough in respect of policy coherence? It will be very interesting to have a look at that research being undertaken with the OECD.

On the roadmap into the voluntary national review, VNR, in July, we have two very large set pieces with regard to the sustainable development goals, the first in July and the second in September. Ireland will be central to both. We are making our voluntary national report in July and, along with Qatar, we will be one of the co-chairs at the SDG summit in September. I want to ask a little bit about where we are in the process and to make sure that what we present to the United Nations is a warts and all portrait rather than just a postcard, an issue I am sure Senator Higgins will pick up on. With regard to September, what groundwork are we doing and what goals are we setting? We have a very significant role. Ireland has a responsibility to the SDGs as one of the lead negotiators in the first instance, along with Kenya.

I will pick up on that SDG accelerator tool. Was it an assessment tool or an accelerator tool? I am not sure of the correct name. I know this was applied to the climate action plan and is being rolled out more widely. The local authorities are going to be asked to do up climate action plans, which is a reopening of their development plans. Will this tool be applicable to that situation? In reopening local development plans to incorporate climate action plans, can we also successfully and comprehensively retrospectively integrate the SDGs into those plans in a more meaningful way? I think that is quite enough for me to ask considering the shortness of the session.