Ms Hannah Gilmartin:

I will mention a few points. I thank Senator Flynn for her comments on leaving no one behind. I think we are all in agreement people have been left behind and continue to be. The principle of leaving no one behind was developed as part of the SDGs and agreed internationally as something to work towards. We in the SDG unit are very much trying to start that conversation on leaving no one behind and how policymakers can better consider different groups so they are better set up to avoid leaving anyone behind, because there are always unintended consequences of policy. It is a real challenge, as the Senator mentioned. Responsibilities are shared across Departments. The Department of Rural and Community Development looks after many of the community engagement pieces. The recent guidance on engaging with marginalised communities was referenced earlier. It was published by Pobal and the Department of Rural and Community Development, whereas the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth looks after disability policy. Therefore, there is a real challenge to bring all the different groups and policymakers together so a coherent approach is taken.

The real possibility the SDGs offer is this framework. It would be ideal if we could get a tangible framework policymakers can refer to so when they are considering their policies, they are considering the groups that have been identified as potentially being ones who could be left behind and have that central area of information being brought together from all the Departments to create a more centralised guidance document people can refer to as a starting point. Anything you put down on paper is always only going to be a starting point because it always comes back to conversations with the relevant people.

We are moving in the right direction but there is still a huge amount of work to be done in this area.