Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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108. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade his views on the United Nations' sustainable development goals; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36987/15]

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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At the end of September, the Taoiseach led the Irish delegation to the UN Summit in New York which formally adopted a new global development agenda. This includes a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and targets which will guide actions in all countries to eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable development over the next fifteen years. President Higgins and my colleague Minister of State Sherlock participated in the Summit.

Ireland co-facilitated the intergovernmental negotiations that achieved agreement among all 193 Member States on the new development framework. The 2030 Agenda is the second of three major international agreements that will be concluded this year to promote truly sustainable development. The first of these, the Addis Ababa Accord on the means of implementing the new SDGs, was agreed in July at the international conference in Ethiopia on Financing for Development. The next challenge will be the adoption of a legally binding climate agreement in Paris in December.

Ireland attaches great importance to the new Sustainable Development Goals and to their effective implementation. I am determined that Ireland’s aid programme, which is central to our foreign policy, will continue to focus on ending poverty and hunger in some of the poorest countries in the world, notably in sub-Saharan Africa. The SDGs are universally applicable and all countries will have to take action. Like our EU partners, we will now focus on developing the most appropriate institutional framework to deliver the 2030 Agenda at home and abroad.