Dr. Robert Mooney:

I thank the Deputy for the questions. In response to her first question as to whether we engage actively with DPOs, 2022 was really the first year of the full implementation of the programme for the national dialogue on climate action. We reached out to a number of the organisations, as I mentioned, but we accept that was not comprehensive and there is significant room for improvement in 2023. We have learnt a lot from our experience in 2022 and we will be reaching out to a much broader range of organisations across all populations we are identifying that are vulnerable to the transition to carbon neutrality. That is quite a broad spectrum of organisations, people and stakeholders. We will very specifically be working with DPOs this year. Equally, as in my opening statement, we have moved from that focus group type model, from which we got a certain amount, to more deliberative workshop-style activity. We find that is much more effective in engaging and understanding the key challenges people are facing.

The core purpose of that is, in 2023, we will be defining the key performance indicators for our delivery of the national dialogue on climate action. That means engaging actively with people but also understanding the key challenges people are facing and how those challenges differ by different populations. That will allow us to say comprehensively what the key challenges we are facing are but which people with disabilities are facing disproportionately. That evidence base then allows us to go back to the policymakers in the areas the Deputy mentioned and state the key challenges and the specific issues being faced by people with disabilities and the asks of them as the policy leads. That addresses the Deputy's third question as to whether it is only consultation for the sake of consultation or how effective the insights or the asks of people are and if they are being reflected in policy. That is our core mechanism for ensuring they are effective at delivering policy. That has been achieved in a number of areas, not specifically regarding people with disabilities. We developed a very comprehensive programme last year, also not as effective in this area as we would have liked. That fed directly into the development of the Climate Action Plan 2023. All our data, insights etc., pulled together via the national dialogue, are analysed comprehensively and presented back to the policymakers in the development of the climate action plan. We are again improving on that process for 2023 and very much in this area.