Ms Diandra Ní Bhuachalla:

One of the main things we try to work on is awareness raising around the SDGs specifically. I met Deputy Ó Cathasaigh at the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in New York last year. One of the mains things that was coming out of that was the need supercharge and turbocharge the SDGs and keep hope alive in terms of reaching them at a time when, we were told, we are only about 12% to 15% of the way there. That is difficult when we are raising awareness between local connections to global issues and global connections and local issues. We go to these international conferences to try to learn more, to try to advocate, and people are already talking about the post-2030 goals. Then we come home and are trying to lobby for the same things that we have been lobbying for and that we have 15 years to try to achieve. As much and all as young people are the ones keeping the hope alive because they want to see change and have recognised that the change we need has to be systemic, it is not going to happen within the typical five-year planning cycle we currently have. We need to change social norms and social attitudes and we need things like universal healthcare.

None of this is going to happen under a short-term approach. We understand that some of policies that are there need to be reactionary because of the challenges we currently face. We saw that with the pandemic. However, the pandemic also taught us that we need to prepare for what is to come. People are very much looking at climate change, at the fact that glaciers are melting and at the viruses that are going to arise as a result and that might affect us in the future. They are looking at climate change through a climate justice lens in the context of how it is going to affect human rights. All in all, what this Bill is going to do is give us hope that we will start thinking more long term and prioritising or even just thinking about the needs of those who are yet to come. If we had started doing this and thinking like this 50 years ago, we might be in a better position. It is wonderful to see indigenous communities around the world that think we are just renting the land we are on and that we have a certain amount of time on the planet. It is also wonderful to see the connection they have to the people who came before them and those will come after. If we could all endorse that kind of mindset, we might be in a better place.