Naoise Ó Cearúil (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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160. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government his plans to implement a whole-of-Government strategy to fully integrate the sustainable development goals into national policies and initiatives; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30264/25]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)
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The Programme for Government commits to accelerating Ireland’s progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 and to adopting a coordinated approach to drive impactful action both at home and abroad.

A whole-of-Government approach is being taken to deliver the SDGs in Ireland. My Department has overall responsibility for promoting the SDGs and overseeing delivery of the National Implementation Plan across Government. Other relevant Ministers have responsibility for implementing individual SDG targets related to their Ministerial functions.

Strategic Objective 1 of our current SDG National Implementation Plan is to embed the SDG framework into the work of Government Departments to achieve greater Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development. Actions in the Plan have helped to ensure that an increasing number of policies now incorporate references to relevant SDGs and targets and reflect how the policy interacts with SDG Agenda.

My officials are also currently working to develop a new National Implementation Plan which will build on progress to date, with a continued focus on achieving greater SDG integration into national policies and initiatives, helping to ensure that each goal is actively pursued across all levels of government.

Ireland is currently participating in a multi-country OECD Project on Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development which will help to inform the new Plan. Workshops with participants from across Government Departments and Civil Society took place in March, with strong and positive engagement at those sessions. A capacity building workshop on SDG Localisation took place in April and a further workshop with representatives from all local authorities, the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA) and the County and City Management Association (CCMA) will take place this month.

A further public consultation process will take place later this year followed by the publication of the new National Implementation Plan.