Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the committee for its leadership on this. I agree with Deputy O'Rourke's point that other committees need to follow suit. It is not really an option for them; they need to do it. It is part of their job. I therefore appeal to all the other committees to do a similar analysis and a similar report and have a debate similar to that which we are having today. Again, I acknowledge the leadership of the committee in that regard.

The Department of Rural and Community Development has a number of relevant funding programmes. I will single out the Tidy Towns one, though, in the context of Deputy Ó Cathasaigh's point on it. It is probably the most tangible manifestation of doing the SDGs on the ground, a very obvious way of doing it and a visible way of it happening in our communities. I acknowledge the winners of the SDG champions under the Tidy Towns remit in the year just gone, namely, Rush Tidy Towns, in my constituency. They are passionate about the SDGs and get quite frustrated that the SDGs are not mentioned more and not given more light. I hope today's debate will address in some small way that ongoing battle we have with the SDGs in getting them into people's consciousness, into departmental consciousness and into policy and decision-makers' consciousness.

Today is a good step in that regard. Without slapping myself on the back, it is important to note that my Department has linked every strategic objective to the sustainable development goals in our rural future policy. When something is done well, we need to acknowledge that.

I want to pick up on a few points made by Deputies. Deputy Donnelly made some comments on lifelong learning. Our SICAP and libraries programmes are two of the most open methods of attracting people on that path. Libraries have grown more in that direction and are one of the few free open indoor public spaces we continue to have. Their role is becoming increasingly important in lifelong learning. SICAP is more about direct support and it is very much part of its job to get people back on the path we classify as furthest from the labour market. That is a narrow enough way of looking at things, but it relates to the broader education side of things.

Deputy Donnelly also mentioned the possibility of a skills audit. A few things come to mind in that regard. ESRI research on the educational levels of people new to Ireland found that, on average, our migrant community here has a higher level of education than we do. There is a high level of third level education, in particular, among migrants. This very much came to light in the past two years with the significant number of Ukrainians here. The Minister, Deputy Harris, has gone to some lengths to make sure their qualifications are recognised. We are seeing increasing numbers of different Ukrainian professionals being recognised here and working in the workforce.

I am aware of a transitional programme that the HSE is running which is attracting GPs from abroad. This is being done in conjunction with the Irish College of General Practitioners. Last year, the programme was successful in bringing 100 people from abroad through the transitional programme who will practise as GPs in the country this year. This year, the target is an additional 250 GPs.

The circular economy was mentioned. On 1 February 2024, as a Green Party Minister I have to acknowledge that today was the launch of the deposit return scheme, a very important day in the promotion not just of the simple idea of recycling plastic but the concept of a circular economy. People will become more conscious of it. The Minister, Deputy Smyth, is extremely conscious that we have to start at source and not just deal with the end product all the time. He is very much pushing that approach with the producers at all levels.

On social protection, the most recent budget was the first ever where benchmarking was used as part of the input process in the development of the decision-making process on the pension rate. I am pushing for the use of benchmarking for other social welfare payments for those of jobseeking age.

Under my responsibilities in the roadmap for social inclusion, I set up a food poverty working group several years ago. We have done some key pieces of work and research. Most important, we have set up a food poverty pilot programme, which I encourage the committee to look at. We are piloting a casework approach in three locations around the country through NGOs which operate food banks. When someone accesses a food bank, they are given the option to speak to a caseworker and sit down and go through their full situation. When someone goes to a food bank, obviously income is an issue. Very often, there are also other issues in the mix and services or other supports that the person was not aware of which could help them. The pilot is going very well and I will get an update on it in the next couple of weeks. It might be something the committee would be interested in exploring and teasing out. I am certainly eager to push it. It has proven to work well over the past couple of months.

The national implementation plan is expiring this year. Deputy Ó Cathasaigh and others were in a good position to press this with the Minister, Deputy Ryan, to make sure the next one is up and running on time. On benchmarking, the minimum essential standard of living, MESL, research is ongoing. We not only directly support it but we are very interested in it. It feeds into our budget decisions.

In terms of the recommendations in the report from the committee, we will have full detailed answers by next week. We have the bones of them here and I have indicated some of them. We will give the committee more detailed answers next week.

There was a question on the new social enterprise policy. We hope to launch it by the end of quarter 1 this year. That tidies up most of the questions. I thank the committee for bringing the sustainable development goals to light and life and starting a debate that I hope other committees will take on board.

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