Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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206. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade in view of the recent peer review by the OECD Development Assistance Committee, which included a recommendation to strengthen mechanisms to identify potential policy conflicts, if the focus areas for the first biennial report on Ireland's progress and policy coherence for development has been agreed; if so, if he will provide the areas and the way those particular areas came to be identified; when the first biennial report is likely to be presented to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13747/15]

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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The Government’s Policy for International Development, One World One Future, commits us to strengthening the oversight role of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Development and to producing a biennial report on Ireland’s progress on Policy Coherence for Development (PCD). The OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Peer Review of Ireland’s Development Cooperation Programme, published in December 2014, noted the considerable progress already made in relation to policy coherence for development, including through research work which has contributed significantly to policy coherence at EU level. It also recognised that there is scope to do more and recommended that we develop a more strategic approach and focus on a few policy issues where greater coherence is required. has been meeting regularly at official level, co-chaired by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, to review Ireland’s participation in the process and the indicators for the Sustainable Development Goals.

It is my intention, following the UN Summit in New York in September, to review how the IDCD is structured and to ensure it is well placed to deliver on our commitment to policy coherence for development in line with the recommendations of the DAC Peer Review and the new development framework. I will work with the committee to identify the areas where Ireland can really make a difference in relation to policy coherence, building on the achievements to date. These could include issues in relation to food security, health policy and international taxation.

I would hope that the first biennial report to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade will be presented during the first quarter of 2016.