Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party)
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158. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he will provide an update on work towards achieving the sustainable development goal targets. [11425/23]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a significant and ambitious framework. A whole-of-Government approach to its implementation has been taken in Ireland. My Department leads on the delivery of 19 SDG targets: 3.9; 7.1; 7.2; 7.3; 8.4; 9.4; 11.6; 12.1; 12.2; 12.4; 12.5; 12.8; 12.c; 13.1; 13.2; 13.3; 13.a; 17.14 and 17.17.

Ireland’s Second National Implementation Plan for the SDGs, 2022 – 2024 was published in October 2022. The Plan was developed by my Department in collaboration with all Government Departments and key stakeholders, and was also based on input from two public consultation processes. A key objective of the Plan is to achieve greater policy coherence for sustainable development with the aim of accelerating achievement of the SDGs at all levels of Government.

The Plan is supplemented by two supporting documents: an SDG policy map which identifies the lead Departments and relevant national policies for each of the 169 SDG targets; and a Policy Update document for each of the SDG targets. These documents are available at: www.gov.ie/sdgs

The Central Statistics Office (CSO), in collaboration with all Government Departments, has prepared as series of statistical publications which monitor and report on how Ireland is progressing towards meeting its targets under the 17 SDGs. Reports are available for SDGs 1 – 16 and can be found on the CSO website.

Ireland will present its second Voluntary National Review (VNR) to the United Nations High-Level Political Forum in July 2023. The VNR report will comprise a high-level data section and a more detailed appendix reporting on progress in respect of achieving the SDGs and related targets.