Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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While we focused a great deal on communities and how we can get them to do more, I believe it is about the big actors and being willing to ask the corporates and big capital to do things differently as well.

There is an idea that it makes it easier to talk about how we want to put in green energy and wind energy if we do not also see a massive data centre or a big terminal for fracked gas, which we never had before, introduced on one side. Then, it is as if the SDGs are just a colourful piece on which we are telling communities to do better. When it comes to large-scale financial decision-making, the mandate of a lot of corporations is to make as much as they can, and some of these international companies are not necessarily tied into the Irish projects. Our responsibility as legislators and at a national level is to make clearer, stronger decisions that give a weighting to the importance of things like the fact we are in the worst list on clean and affordable energy, which should be treated as a national problem we are stepping up on and on which we should not be taking backward steps.

I have another question, and I will go very local and very international - we are going small and big all the time. SDG 11 is one on which we are actually doing okay according to the indicators, but there is a note on sustainable cities and communities. As I said, the work Chambers Ireland has been doing on place-based decision-making is really good. It is place based because we are in our local towns and communities, but we are also on a planet. They are both places and they are both real. The SDGs are a lot more real than the short-term economic logic that sometimes prevails. It is that joined up thinking at local level.

The point has been made by some of the other speakers that many of the indicators for SDG 11 are almost geared towards developing cities at a very basic level. The asks are quite low in terms of the targets and indicators in that regard. Places like Denmark have sought more ambitious asks under SDG 11 for sustainable cities and communities. Should we not be challenging ourselves to do more as a country with different resources? The baseline internationally on cities is so low that we are getting there. However, I am really interested to hear from Chambers Ireland, because it is so connected in, on what a couple of the more ambitious step-ups on the goals and targets for SDG 11 look like from its perspective.

The second part is on the international side because this is a global picture and, again, it is place based. We are on a planet and we share it. What was radical about the SDGs was that they were universal. What could we be doing differently in terms of policy coherence to ensure we are supporting rather than hindering others around the world in achieving the sustainable development goals? It is meant to be a global piece. One of the great things is that it allows local-to-local conversations like a conversation between Madrid, Dublin and Lagos. These are local-to-local conversations that can happen using the SDGs as a common reference point. The witnesses might also comment on that local-to-local piece internationally.

In terms of doing our piece, and specifically on our delivery of official development assistance, ODA, and climate finance, which is one of the goals. As I understand it, Ireland is committing to going to €225 million on climate finance, but over €400 million would be our fair share under the commitments in the SDGs, under which a global figure of €100 billion is meant to be delivered by developed countries. The witnesses might comment on those two aspect especially, and any other aspect of how our policy coherence nationally can help the global delivery of SDGs. We have a special responsibility as one of the two countries that chaired the negotiations and helped to deliver the global SDG platform at the UN. I will go to Mr. Talbot first.