Mr. Johnny Sheehan:

This framework and that framework can be overwhelming but it is critical, from working with communities at a local level, that they can relate to them. There can be a headline and everybody could repeat the sustainable development goals or the UN framework covering these areas and so on but you need to bring it back to people's lives. Ms Murphy and Ms Ciesielski both mentioned public participation networks. Local economic and community plans impact people's lives at a local level.

If those plans are talking about the sustainable development goals, then people will be able to see they are actually relevant to their lives. One thing we can see in respect of the goals and targets is that people can go "Oh, yeah". I work in The Wheel, for example, and the missions of all our member organisations link to one or more of the goals. When we look at the targets within the goals, however, it is often the case that the connection might not be made with what is being done on the ground. The connection might be made to the goal, but something is lost in respect of what the targets and indicators do.

If there can be investment in ensuring that all the local authorities go beyond saying they are committed to the SDGs in their local economic and community plans and actually demonstrate it and reinforce the link to them, that would be critical for engaging groups in this regard. Equally, it is important because members of the public will pause and realise there is no coherence between this plan for building a road, extracting and using natural gas or whatever it might be and what they want to see in terms of having a sustainable environment, economy and society. It is, therefore, extremely important to link the goals back to what is happening on the ground at a local level.