Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The Government's international development policy, A Better World, is framed by our commitment to the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It sets out four broad policy priorities: gender equality, reducing humanitarian need, climate action and strengthening governance. It commits us to reaching ‘the furthest behind first' in the implementation of our programme and policies.

Ireland has adopted a whole-of-government approach to the implementation of the SDGs. The Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications has responsibility for promoting the SDGs, and for overseeing their coherent implementation across Government. At the UN, Ireland is currently co-facilitating negotiations on the Political Declaration to be adopted at the SDGs Summit in New York in September. Ireland will also present our second Voluntary National Review of progress towards the SDGs at the United Nations High-Level Political Forum in New York in July.

The Central Statistics Office, in collaboration with all Government Departments, has prepared a series of statistical publications which monitor and report on how Ireland is progressing towards meeting its targets under the 17 SDGs. Reports are available at UN Sustainable Development Goals - CSO - Central Statistics Office.

In the implementation of our development policy and in preparation for the SDG summit, the Department engages closely with Irish civil society.

The commitment to providing 0.7% of Gross National Income for Official Development Assistance by 2030 is an important element of our support for the achievement of the SDGs. For 2023, the Government has provided a gross allocation to ODA of over €1.233 billion. 2023 is the ninth consecutive year in which the allocation for ODA has increased, and the second consecutive year in which the allocation has reached over €1 billion. Our overall ODA figures have been affected by the provision of services for Ukrainian refugees in Ireland. Preliminary calculations for 2022, including ODA-eligible first year refugee costs, show total ODA at €2.33 billion, or 0.64% of GNI. None of the costs associated with the reception of Ukrainian refugees were sourced from the original ODA allocation for 2022, and this will also be the situation in 2023.

The Government is strongly committed to supporting international climate action, in the context of the SDGs and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. In July 2022, we published Ireland’s International Climate Finance Roadmap, which represents Ireland’s plan to fulfil our international climate finance commitments and our support to the achievement of SDG 13 on Climate Action. We are committed to providing at least €225 million annually in international climate finance by 2025.