Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

209. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment when a draft of Ireland’s second national progress report on the sustainable development goals will be published; when a finalised document will be submitted to the United Nations in 2021; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13903/21]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a significant and ambitious policy agenda that concerns all Government Departments.

The 2030 Agenda emphasises the importance of transparent and participatory follow-up and review arrangements at the national, regional and international levels, in order to accurately assess implementation of the SDGs up to 2030. As part of the follow-up and review arrangements, countries are encouraged to conduct regular reviews of progress at national level and also to participate in the Voluntary National Reviews (VNR) of the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF). Ireland supports such an approach to ensure all UN members are accountable and take ownership of the Goals. In this regard Ireland committed, under the first SDG National Implementation Plan 2018 - 2020, to prepare a national report on implementation of the Goals every two years and to present a VNR to the UN every four years. Ireland presented its first VNR to the HLPF in July 2018 and is due to present its second VNR in 2022.

Work has commenced on the next SDG Implementation Plan and I propose to integrate the progress report as part of development of the next Plan, which I intend to publish later this year.

On an on-going basis, an SDG GeoHive website () provides data on Ireland’s progress in implementing the SDGs. In addition, in 2020 the Central Statistics Office began publishing statistical progress reports on individual SDGs, supported by infographics to summarise the report contents in an accessible manner. Reports for SDGs 1 to 6 are now available, with a report on Goal 7 for energy due in the second quarter of this year. These reports are available at .