Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his response. I will take up his suggestion on the food poverty pilot. I ask that when the report comes to him he circulates it to the committee. I can give him an assurance that the committee will look into it and would like to develop it. It is something the committee is committed to.

I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach of the committee, Deputy Ó Cathasaigh, for acting as rapporteur on this important issue and drafting this report. I thank the witnesses, those who made submissions, the members of the committee and the secretariat, in particular Haley O'Shea who was involved in drafting the report. I also thank the various Departments and officials for their assistance.

As a country, Ireland is proud of the role it has played in the creation of the sustainable development goals through the work of our former ambassador, David Donoghue, who worked very closely with the co-facilitator from Kenya, ambassador Macharia Kamau, and convinced the global community to agree to the most ambitious set of commitments in the history of the United Nations. While we secured a commitment from the global community individually and collectively to sign up to these goals, we must now ensure that these objectives are fully implemented at home and in every other nation on this planet.

As the first Minister with specific responsibility for co-ordinating the implementation of the sustainable development goals across the whole of government, in April 2018 I launched Ireland's first sustainable development goal national implementation plan which was focused on raising public awareness and engagement and aligning Ireland's national policies with these goals. In simple terms, the sustainable development goals are about getting governments and society to think and act differently. It is not about ideology; rather, it is about implementation in real and practical terms and breaking away from the old siloed thinking that says that a policy matter is someone else's problem or, worse still, that nobody has a responsibility to provide solutions.

The sustainable development goals are about the responsibility of each and every one of us to ensure that they are achieved and delivered. Delivering on the sustainable development goals can help us to achieve the objective of developing our public service to think and do things differently. The culture of saying "It is not my job" will not work if we are to achieve our objectives. We must bring the public and key players, such as NGOs, with us if we are to deliver the sustainable develop goals for everyone.

The parliamentary report presented by the Joint Committee on Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands, in reviewing the sustainable development goals and their adoption by Departments, is a pioneering effort in integrating the sustainable development goals into our institutional mechanisms and is instrumental in mainstreaming them into our policy and deliberative processes.

Our committee took a multifaceted approach, ensuring the SDGs are not only acknowledged in our activities but are also at the core of our legislative budgetary and oversight process. The fundamental first step taken in this process was to systematically review the implementation and delivery of the goals through meticulous mapping by the Oireachtas committee secretariat of the 169 SDG targets to the appropriate parliamentary committees. This mapping considers each target's lead Department, stakeholder Departments and the related national policies. Because our committee is one of the few parliamentary committees that has responsibility for more than one Department, it provided us with the ability to evaluate cross-departmental collaboration between the Department of Social Protection on one hand and the Department of Rural and Community Development on the other.

We also focused on understanding how these Departments internalise and operationalise the SDG targets within their policies and programmes. We were, as a committee, in a unique position to recognise the multifaceted nature of the SDG because of our extremely broad remit across all urban and rural communities as well as our island communities. As a result, we conducted extensive consultations with various stakeholders, which included Departments, NGOs, community groups and subject matter experts. These interactions provided diverse perspectives on the practical implementation and challenges of the sustainable development goals, including giving special attention to the unique challenges and opportunities in implementing the SDGs on the islands, acknowledging their geographic distinctiveness. Based on our findings, we formulated 17 target recommendations aimed at answering the effectiveness of SDG implementation. These recommendations are designed to be actionable and specific, catering to the distinct needs of the Departments under review and the other stakeholders Departments, where appropriate.

Finally, because the implementation of the SDGs is an evolving process, we adopted an iterative review approach as a committee with an annual review incorporated now into our work programme. This allows for continuous monitoring, feedback and adaptation of the strategies. We were the first committee to do this, but we hope we will act as a template, not just for other committees here in our national Parliament but other committees right across the globe to do the same thing in their own parliaments to ensure we raise all boats on this island, in our communities right across the country, and right across the globe. I commend the report to the House.

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