Mr. David Donoghue:

I am happy to give an initial reaction. I am very sympathetic to what the Deputy said. Let me begin by clarifying what I meant by modest achievements so far on the SDGs. The UN Secretary General has said that only 12% of the 159 targets are on track at present. We are halfway through. There are 159 sub-goals which needs to be progressed and we are on track to achieve only 12% of them. That spells out starkly how far behind we are. The two main reasons for that are: first, Covid and the impact it had socially and economically; and second, the repercussions of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, interruptions of supply chains and so on. There are many other factors.

I now come to the Deputy's main point and argument. It is true that we are facing into very strong headwinds with the moves to the right. While this may seem counterintuitive, the best way to measure how the SDGs are being treated globally is to look at the actions at an annual conference called the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, to which I referred. Each year at that conference the enthusiasm is more palpable. I should emphasise that I was one of the sceptics. I thought that by about now we would begin to hear slightly more defeatist tones, especially after the 12% completion. However, the mood is that regardless of difficult it is, we must knuckle down and do the best we can between now and 2030.

That may seem a bit Pollyanna-ish. How likely is it that we will in fact achieve the goals in full by 2030? Nevertheless for whatever reason it is as if the world feels this is the anchor and we have to hang on to it. When I say the world, no country has spoken out against the SDGs. If I can get to the point, Trump did not actually disown the SDGs while he was president. One reason for that-----