Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I agree with those who have spoken about the need for greater urgency and action to deal with climate change, but those involved realise it also requires us to take many more dramatic steps to protect the environment and the social system in a variety of ways. In that regard, I understand the Taoiseach has abdicated responsibility for implementing the sustainable development goals to the line Minister, Deputy Denis Naughten, but I do not see how that can work. I am interested in this issue as it affects the committees. It is the type of issue that comes in under every committee, in education and justice, as well as dealing with environmental issues. Will the Taoiseach outline what role, if any, his Department has in overseeing implementation of the sustainable development goals? How does it fit across the five Cabinet sub-committees? Does the Taoiseach agree that if, as he stated in the Timemagazine article, we have to, as a country, be at the centred of the world, in other words, be open to what is going on in it, the biggest hope for it is that this manifesto for the north, as well as the south, the sustainable development goals, which were negotiated by an Irish civil servant shows us the path? That being the case, why is it that I see them nowhere in his or his Department's agenda? Why is it that he is not taking responsibility? Where do they sit within the Cabinet sub-committee system?

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