I call on Deputy Ó Cathasaigh, the Leas-Chathaoirleach of the Joint Committee on Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands.
Report of Joint Committee on Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands: Motion
I move:
That Dáil Éireann shall take note of the Report of the Joint Committee on Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands entitled "Report on the progress of the Sustainable Development Goals 2023", copies of which were laid before Dáil Éireann on 7th December, 2023.
I thank the Cathaoirleach of the Joint Committee on Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands who allowed me as rapporteur to initiate our discussion on this report. The sustainable development goals, SDGs, which were adopted by United Nations member states in 2015, are a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and planet, and a roadmap for how we might all, as a global community, live better together on an equitable basis. They committed to tackling poverty, hunger and inequality by promoting sustainable prosperity in a way that respects our planetary boundaries and the shared natural world that sustains us. The 17 SDGs, underpinned by 169 subtargets, are pledged to leave nobody behind while reaching the furthest behind first.
It is important to clarify they are often regarded as something that applies to overseas development aid or through the Department of Foreign Affairs, something that happens in countries other than here - and certainly goals 1 or 2 would be most easily applied to those contexts - or something exclusively environmental in nature. I could point to goals 13, 14 and 15 in terms of their environmental outputs but actually they are a cross-cutting framework by which we can address inequality across all parts of our society and ensure that our future development is on a sustainable basis. It is important that Ireland continues to play a central role in the implementation of the SDGs considering the central role we played in their initial negotiation in 2015 and again in the agreement to the political declaration in September 2023. In his speech to the UN on that occasion, the Taoiseach recommitted Ireland to Agenda 2030, saying: "It must become more than a piece of paper - as Leaders it is our solemn responsibility to breathe life into it."
The national implementation plan for the SDGs lays out a policy map that assigns, for each of the 169 targets, a lead Department and, in relevant instances, a stakeholder Department. That is what we chose to follow in our investigation of these goals and their subtargets in our considerations as a committee. The report details the work of the committee in holding our respective Departments to account in their progression of those goals and targets assigned to them on the policy map. We felt it was important to have this discussed as we are the first committed to complete and report on this process, although other committees are doing some useful work in the area as well. We hope that this will be part of a repeated and iterative process whereby we strengthen and embed the role of the SDGs as a tool for effective and cross-cutting policy making, not just in the Department of Social Protection. Rural and Community Development and the Islands, but across government.
I will reflect a little on the process whereby we came to produce this report. The national implementation plan explicitly references the important role that is to be played by Oireachtas committees in section 3(1)(6). This role in monitoring and overseeing the progress on SDGs is also underpinned by Standing Order 100(4) relating to the work programme of the committees, which states that progress on the implementation of the sustainable development goals as set out in the United Nations 2030 agenda for sustainable development, are within the scope of the committees' orders for references set out in Standing Orders. I acknowledge the role of Maeve McLynn who, at the start of this Dáil term, identified the opportunity to insert that new provision to Standing Orders for committees.
As such, we organised two sessions. In our first session, departmental representatives from the Minister of State's Department and the Department of Social Protection came before us. We had a second session with a range of witnesses who were quite expert in the area. From Coalition 2030 we had Mr. John Sheehan; Ms Louise Lennon; Ms Meaghan Carmody who is joining us in the Public Gallery this afternoon for which I thank her; Mr. Paul Ginnell and Mr. Tim Hanley. We also had representatives from Comhdháil Oileain na hÉireann and Social Justice Ireland. Their contributions very much informed what went on to become our recommendations which are in this report.
I propose to go through the recommendations. I am happy that the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien, is taking this debate because many recommendations relate directly to some of the work he is doing in both of the Departments in which he serves. It is useful that he is here to respond to these.
The first recommendation is that we did not have specific subtargets mapped to the islands. The commitment in the SDGs is to reach the furthest behind first and make sure we leave nobody. The committee felt that the islands could do with that specific mapping. Representatives from Comhdháil Oileain na hÉireann suggested that the islands would be an excellent test bed for sustainable development and we could respond to that. I agree with that. They are already regarded as lighthouses in terms of the renewable energy transition. We could easily apply many of the lessons of the SDGs to the islands as well and actually have a broader consideration in terms of the targets and subtargets than we find in this report.
With regard to recommendations 2 and 4, the lead Department is the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. These recommendations both deal with participation in lifelong learning and a worry that we had around the digital transition, whereby certain cohorts are being left behind. The involvement of the Minister of State's Department in this would relate to subgoal 4.6 and our public libraries policy. The committee felt that libraries are essential institutions and incredibly accessible to most people. Investment in our library services is making that moreso the case. However, we need to work more on having them become places that are seen as spaces for lifelong learning. In particular, we were worried about the digital divide whereby more and more of the services that people access on a daily basis, be it for Revenue online or social welfare provision, or even relating to choice-based letting for example, which regularly presents in my constituency clinic. These are places where people who are suffering from being on the wrong side of the digital divide feel they are increasingly locked out of the provision of services. The Minister of State might be able to think about how we develop that role.
I will skip ahead to recommendation 6, which states that the committee recommends that delivery and vindication of the SDGs are given a central position in the second national social enterprise policy. That falls within the remit of the Minister of State. There is huge scope for social enterprises to put the SDGs at the absolute heart of what they do. This makes sense. I have seen some excellent work in the European context on the future for social enterprise. His Department could be pivotal in making sure that the SDGs really are worked in there. The most recent social enterprise policy is now finished so maybe the Minister of State will be able to update us on when we can expect to see a new iteration of that.
I refer to another policy that falls within his Department, which gave rise to recommendation 10. We recommend that adequate training and support be provided to community structures, Tidy Towns committees, public participation networks, PPNs, and town teams. We identified the relevant national policy, which is the sustainable, inclusive and empowered communities five-year strategy. The committee particularly acknowledges the role played by Tidy Towns, which is in practically every town and village throughout Ireland and is administered by the Minister of State's Department. In promoting an awareness and understanding of the SDGs, it is important that people can get under the bonnet, rather than just have 17 shiny badges or pins on their lapel, but that they understand the subtargets and how they can be implemented in the real world in their own towns and villages. It locates the goals for people within their own communities. I cannot think of a better example than the Tidy Towns committees in terms of the work that they do. The SDGs have been aligned to each of eight competition categories within the Tidy Towns and a specific SDG award was introduced in 2021, really helping to build that practical understanding within communities. Another area where there is huge potential is the town teams, under our Town Centre First policy. Town teams are being established. Chambers Ireland has produced an absolutely excellent toolkit and is probably a leader in that first principles approach.
It has produced an excellent toolkit for how towns and businesses in towns can apply the SDGs as a first-principle approach. I would like to see that integrated into the thinking of our town teams from the get-go because it is an important opportunity to contextualise it and sit it down in people's communities to make sure they understand the SDGs do not happen far away but in towns and villages across the country.
A number of other recommendations would fall under the Department of Rural and Community Development but I want to talk about the other half of the work we had to do, which was around the Department of Social Protection. We had a particular look at goal 1, which is to do with poverty, and target 1.2, which sets out, by 2030, to "reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions." That last piece is important because target 1.1 refers to a minimum bar of income, which is more applicable to the developing world than to here, but target 1.2 talks of national definitions. The national definition we have set out as the social target for poverty reduction is to reduce consistent poverty to 2% or less. That is work the Minister of State set out within the Department.
According to SILC figures presented by Department representatives when they were in with us, the rate of consistent poverty in the 2020 survey was 4.77%, reducing to 4% in 2021 and bouncing back up in 2022. While we have made progress since the 2013 peak of 9%, we have quite a way to travel if we are serious about reaching that target of 2%.
Meaghan Carmody of Coalition 2030 spoke of the need for disaggregated data because often in a national context we can present how Ireland is doing. The CSO does good work on the SDGs on its dashboard, so for education, poverty or whatever, we might present a national picture but in so doing may miss the specific groups we are talking about in terms of the SDGs. Those are the people who are furthest behind and whom we want to reach first. I mentioned the islands. They are geographically remote and difficult to reach. There are also Travellers, people precluded from work by ill health, older people and one-parent families. These are the people in our society we know to be at greater risk of poverty or exclusion from society or education. It is important we know exactly what we are dealing with and have disaggregated data to speak to.
The other thing I will mention to the Minister of State, which will be no surprise, is income adequacy. One recommendation we made concerned benchmarking of social welfare rates, whether against the minimum essential standard of living or whatever else. We feel strongly it should be removed from the budgetary cycle of "Are we putting a fiver on the pensions?" We should set a minimum floor whereby people, particularly those on fixed incomes, know the adequacy of their income will be maintained over time.
I thank all the people who came to the committee and contributed. I thank the staff in the secretariat, who assisted in the preparation of the report, and the Cathaoirleach and members of the committee, who contributed so well. I thank Coalition 2030 and Social justice Ireland. Social Justice Ireland prepares a report each year, the sustainable progress index, which is very useful in holding our feet to the flames on the progress we are making.
The current national implementation plan for the SDGs expires in 2024. I would like the Minister of State to ask the Minister, Deputy Ryan, what plans are in place to ensure we have continuity of the plan.
I think this process was useful. It is something we can improve on next year. As an iterative process, it will make the Departments pay attention if they know they have to report on this every year. I thank committee members for the engagement we had in this process. I hope we see other committees engage and complete this process in the same way we have.
I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion. I thank the Joint Committee on Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands for its report on the progress being made on the SDGs. Achievement of the SDGs is essential if we are to ensure a sustainable future for all. They address the global and local challenges we face, including poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice. These challenges, if left unaddressed, will impact us all in the coming years and for generations to come. Achieving the SDGs requires collaboration among governments, businesses, civil society and individuals. This work will play out on the macro and micro levels, international on one hand and local on the other.
I will speak on the SDGs as they relate to the local, voluntary and community context and will focus on the work of the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Department of Social Protection on contributing to achieving the SDGs. Community and voluntary organisations are key players at local level in driving positive social change in society and will be important contributors to achieving the SDGs. The Department of Rural and Community Development, in partnership with other Departments, promotes community engagement and works across government to strengthen and build understanding and capacity in local government and the community and voluntary sector in order to support the delivery of current and future SDG national implementation plans.
The partnership between Government and local community structures will be key to achieving the principle set out in the SDGs of leaving no one behind. A key avenue to building social cohesion is encouraging participation and enabling people to have a say in the decisions that will affect their lives. Participation in decision-making leads to community empowerment and a sense of ownership that, if nurtured, can only lead to better outcomes. Accordingly, the high level objectives and actions set out in Sustainable, Inclusive and Empowered Communities, the five-year strategy for the community and voluntary sector, support consultation, inclusion and the participation of communities in public policy and decision-making at all levels, and support the implementation of SDG 4, quality education, SDG 12, responsible consumption and production, SDG 13, climate action, and SDG 16, peace, justice and strong institutions.
The Department of Social Protection also regularly holds formal meetings with stakeholders, including bilateral meetings with the community and voluntary pillar, as well as the pre-budget forum to discuss a broad range of issues. The Department hosts the annual social inclusion forum , which brings together policymakers, service providers and service users, including NGOs, community and voluntary sector groups and representatives of people experiencing poverty and social inclusion, to discuss and debate national policy on poverty and social inclusion. The most recent forum took place in June last year.
Ireland has adopted a whole-of-government approach to implementing the SDGs. Departments are collaborating and working to progress the SDGs through various policies and funding supports. In its report, the committee acknowledges the work of the Department of Rural and Community Development in explicitly incorporating the SDGs across a broad range of policies, including the national social enterprise policy, Our Rural Future, town centre first, Embracing Ireland's Outdoors and Our Living Islands. Each strategic objective in the Our Living Islands document is linked to an SDG, as is the Our Rural Future document. The Department's statement of strategy for 2023 to 2025 includes a commitment to continue to align our polices with the SDG national implementation plan and to place SDGs at the heart of our policies.
Under the national implementation plan, the Department of Social Protection was given lead and stakeholder responsibility for several targets focusing on the areas of social protection, poverty, inequality and employment activation. Under goal 1, which relates to poverty, the Department leads on targets 1.2 and 1.3. Target 1.2 relates to reducing poverty as nationally defined.
In Ireland, the national social target for poverty reduction as set out in the Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025 is to reduce consistent poverty to 2% or less. In the 2020 survey of income and living conditions, the rate of consistent poverty was 4.7%. This reduced to 4% in the 2021 survey but increased to 5.3% in the 2022 survey. While it is disappointing to see this increase in the consistent poverty rate, as it had been steadily declining since peaking at 9% in the 2013 survey, some caution must be exercised in interpreting the figure as it is based on 2021 income and this was a period when the Covid pandemic had a significant impact on incomes. In addition, the impact of permanent and cost-of-living measures introduced under budgets 2022, 2023 and 2024 are not reflected in the income data. The full impact of the pandemic will not wash through SILC data until the 2024 survey this year.
Target 1.3 relates to implementing social protection systems with substantial coverage of the poor and vulnerable. Ireland continues to have one of the most effective systems of social transfers in the EU in terms of poverty prevention. In 2022 the at risk of poverty rate before social transfers was 36.7%, but this reduced to 13.1% after transfers were included. This represents an overall poverty reduction effect of 64%. Social transfers have an important role in reducing poverty and inequality. Recent budgets have been progressive, with a strong emphasis on supporting the most vulnerable. They have included a mix of increases to weekly payments and supports to assist the most vulnerable with cost-of-living increases. Under goal 10 the Department is responsible for a target of 10.1, which is to increase the incomes of the bottom 40% of the population at a higher rate than the national average. According to 2022 EU SILC data, social transfers reduced income inequality in Ireland from 38.5% to 27.9%, which represents an income inequality reduction of 38%. This is measured by the Gini coefficient. This is the largest reduction in income inequality in the EU27 and was markedly higher than the EU27 average of 17.9%.
Shifting to goal 8, which relates to employment, the Department of Social Protection is the lead on target 8.6, which is to substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training, abbreviated as NEET. There was a sharp increase in this rate in 2020 with the onset of the pandemic. However, Ireland’s NEET rate has reduced considerably in recent years and currently lies well below the European average. The latest Eurostat data for quarter 3 of 2023 records a NEET rate in Ireland of 6.9% for 15- to 24-year-olds and 8.7% for 15- to 29-year-olds. This compares favourably with the EU average NEET rate of 9.1% for 15- to 24-year-olds and 11.2% for 15- to 29-year-olds.
The Department is also the co-lead on target 8.B on developing a youth employment strategy. Pathways to Work 2021-2025, which is the national employment services strategy, contains a number of commitments to support young people into training, education and employment and many of these have been delivered. Of course, we must continue to do more and the committee’s report set out a number of recommendations for consideration by both the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Department of Social Protection on the goals and sub-targets assigned to those Departments as part of the SDG policy map. Departmental responses to those recommendations are currently being finalised and will be submitted to the committee shortly. The SDGs provide us with a blueprint for a more equitable and sustainable world by 2030. They are universally applicable, encouraging all nations to mobilise efforts to end poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change while ensuring no-one is left behind. By achieving full implementation of the SDGs we can create more sustainable communities of the future creating environments that promote greater health and well-being for all individuals contributing to an overall better quality of life for all while minimising environmental impact and enhancing social inclusion.
I will leave it at that for now, but I will pick up Deputy Ó Cathasaigh’s issues and any other issues raised in my closing statement.
I thank everyone for the work that has been done on this and the sustainable development goals, including those on the committee and all the people who attended. The Cathaoirleach has done excellent work over the past year. It has been a really useful exercise and shows what we can do when we look at the recommendations. I will go through some of them briefly to highlight a few issues and Deputy O'Rourke is also going to go through some of them.
In recommendation 2 in particular the committee “recommends that particular focus be given to the area of Lifelong Learning in order to increase participation rates”. As somebody who left school at age 15, one of the lessons I learned later on is we are always learning, every day is a school day and every day we learn something new. It is really important to get the message across to everyone in our communities that there are pathways through education right the way through our entire lives. There are some disadvantaged communities, like the Traveller community and new communities of people who have come into the country recently. There is obviously an issue around lifelong learning, but access to education is something that is incredibly important. It is one of the goals we should be really focused on because education is the way out of poverty. It is certainly one of the most important things.
Recommendation 4 is to “address skills deficits that persist among certain groups, older people and those with lower educational attainment …”. Again it is looking at the skills audit. Maybe the Minister of State could take this one up. We have had thousands of people come in over the last number of years looking for international protection and asylum. I am not sure whether this is true, but I heard the other day there is no skills audit of people who come in. There is no analysis of what skills they have with respect to what they can contribute to the system. It is something that could be really important if it were addressed. I was listening to a programme on RTÉ the other night and a representative talked about Cahersiveen. He talked about there being a population of 500 Ukrainians there. As we know, there is huge shortage of GPs in pretty much every community, but there were doctors who came in from Ukraine. It is about that addition, looking at the skills and how we can support people to utilise the skills they have to benefit the communities they are moving into to enhance them.
Recommendation 7 is for “continued investment in remote working facilities in rural areas and on the islands” in particular. We had a recent visit to Arranmore, which was superb. I think it was the first online committee on the islands that was broadcast live. It was a really good experience. Again, one of the interesting statistics was that there were two people working on the islands remotely and that has gone up now through the remote hub to 27 or 29. That is really good. It enhances the community, it keeps people on the islands and it encourages them to build a life there.
Recommendation 9 deals with a big bugbear of mine with the circular economy. I will address the first part, which is the waste streams. Something we really need to look at when talking about the circular economy and waste streams is that we do not start when the consumer buys the product and finish when the consumer finishes paying to recycle the product. We need to get in much earlier so when companies are producing these products there is an onus on them to reduce the amount of waste. I spoke to a number of shops over the last while and people talked about the waste packaging that comes with a product when it comes from the factory via the van or truck to the shop. Vast amounts of waste are created trying to patch this up and then shops have to get rid of that waste. That is paid for by the consumer. When we are talking about the circular economy we have to move much further back with that.
It is when the product is being produced in the factory that there needs to be a lot more thought about the amount of packaging that goes into the production, from the very beginning to the very end, in order that it is not left to the consumers ourselves to pick up the slack in that regard.
Recommendation 12 regarding social welfare rates was, I think, noted by Deputy Ó Cathasaigh. One of Sinn Féin's recommendations in this regard is the establishment of a social welfare adequacy commission which would advise the Government on social protection payment rates. The commission would make recommendations on payment rates ahead of the annual budget, with the aim of ensuring they are adequate, meet a minimal essential standard of living and protect people from poverty. This would ensure that all recipients are protected from poverty. It is important to note that these rates can fluctuate upwards or downwards depending on inflation and the success of any government in providing access to affordable or free healthcare, housing and childcare. It is important to note, in the context of social welfare rates, that many people are living below the poverty line. Nobody should be living below the poverty line in one of the wealthiest countries in Europe. We need to do an awful lot of work on that. Social Justice Ireland produces a really interesting booklet every year in that regard and on the impacts of poverty. We see them in our communities and deal with them in our constituency offices all the time.
Recommendation 15 is "that the Connecting Ireland policy is accelerated in order to tackle the issue of transportation deprivation among people living in rural areas". It is not just rural areas; in some urban areas there is a huge deficit of public transport and access to it. One particular area in my constituency is Hollystown and beyond, into the rural hinterland. There is very little public transport there. There are significant rural parts of Dublin. That needs to be taken into account as well.
Lastly, I wish to address the issue of hot meals as an effective anti-poverty measure. I have personal experience of this. When I started work in 2001 on the early school leaver initiative, a precursor to the school completion programme, there was a grant of €20,000 given by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in the Coolock-Darndale area for the provision of breakfasts for children. That was one of the very first programmes to address access to food for people in disadvantaged areas. Now there has been the expansion of it to hot meals during the day, the breakfast clubs and the after-school clubs. It is really important and has really added to the educational attainment of children, encouraging young people to get into school. As we know, not everybody has access to a hot meal during the day. The universality of it is also really important. Over the nearly 20 years I was there, we always looked at young students who were supported but who needed that extra support. They were on our 100 support list. We also always included students who were not on our support lists because we do not want to isolate students or have them as targeted students. They all need to be supported. That is really important.
I welcome the opportunity to speak on this report. I commend the committee on its work on it and commend the Cathaoirleach, the members and all the witnesses who presented. It is probably an exercise that could be replicated by other committees. The Sustainable Development Goals, significantly, are the only universally agreed framework with the aim of meeting everyone's needs without overshooting planetary boundaries. They are a roadmap to a better and more sustainable future in which no one is left behind. They represent the interconnected nature of the challenges that confront us and are a universal call to action to end poverty, to protect the planet and to improve the lives of everyone.
Unfortunately, however, we are halfway through the 15-year period and only 15% of the goals worldwide have been implemented. I acknowledge and recognise that Ireland has made progress on a number of the goals. However, serious challenges lie ahead for progress on achievement on some others, particularly those relating to the environment as regards energy poverty and poverty more generally. We need ambitious action, but a just transition has to be at the heart of everything we do, and it seems in many instances to be quite far away.
When Coalition 2030, for example, last addressed the climate committee on the SDGs, it made it clear that the Government's plan as regards retrofitting in particular contained several weaknesses. It made it clear that the energy needs of those furthest behind remain unmet, and there are fundamental issues there not only for this committee but also for those tasked with designing and implementing policy and delivering on the SDGs. The energy needs of those furthest behind remain unmet, and that is significant.
There are measures we can take. Sinn Féin and others have proposed that we should have a dedicated scheme targeted at those who are in the coldest, poorest homes and who are burning solid fuel, for example, with deeper retrofits to lift them out of energy poverty. It is a fundamental weakness of our retrofitting plan that there are not specific targets as regards lifting people out of energy poverty. We have targets in terms of the number of BER B2s or equivalent we would reach and targets as regards the number of heat pumps we install, but those targets could be met and we could still have many people left behind in energy poverty while at the same time delivering a massive transfer of wealth in the wrong direction.
There is a lot to do. The committee has undertaken important work. As I said, it could be replicated by other committees. The SDGs provide a really useful framework for measuring and managing. There is a major challenge there but there is opportunity in it if the framework is used, if the right targets are identified and if delivery is made on them. I make particular reference to our retrofitting policy, the national retrofitting plan, and ask what the targets are and what we are trying to do. In my opinion, we need not only to reduce emissions in the residential sector but also to lift people out of energy poverty and give people warmer, cosier homes that they can enjoy late into their lives.
I commend the committee again. Like all these discussions about reports, this is a call to action. Let us hope we see the recommendations implemented.
I thank the committee for its leadership on this. I agree with Deputy O'Rourke's point that other committees need to follow suit. It is not really an option for them; they need to do it. It is part of their job. I therefore appeal to all the other committees to do a similar analysis and a similar report and have a debate similar to that which we are having today. Again, I acknowledge the leadership of the committee in that regard.
The Department of Rural and Community Development has a number of relevant funding programmes. I will single out the Tidy Towns one, though, in the context of Deputy Ó Cathasaigh's point on it. It is probably the most tangible manifestation of doing the SDGs on the ground, a very obvious way of doing it and a visible way of it happening in our communities. I acknowledge the winners of the SDG champions under the Tidy Towns remit in the year just gone, namely, Rush Tidy Towns, in my constituency. They are passionate about the SDGs and get quite frustrated that the SDGs are not mentioned more and not given more light. I hope today's debate will address in some small way that ongoing battle we have with the SDGs in getting them into people's consciousness, into departmental consciousness and into policy and decision-makers' consciousness.
Today is a good step in that regard. Without slapping myself on the back, it is important to note that my Department has linked every strategic objective to the sustainable development goals in our rural future policy. When something is done well, we need to acknowledge that.
I want to pick up on a few points made by Deputies. Deputy Donnelly made some comments on lifelong learning. Our SICAP and libraries programmes are two of the most open methods of attracting people on that path. Libraries have grown more in that direction and are one of the few free open indoor public spaces we continue to have. Their role is becoming increasingly important in lifelong learning. SICAP is more about direct support and it is very much part of its job to get people back on the path we classify as furthest from the labour market. That is a narrow enough way of looking at things, but it relates to the broader education side of things.
Deputy Donnelly also mentioned the possibility of a skills audit. A few things come to mind in that regard. ESRI research on the educational levels of people new to Ireland found that, on average, our migrant community here has a higher level of education than we do. There is a high level of third level education, in particular, among migrants. This very much came to light in the past two years with the significant number of Ukrainians here. The Minister, Deputy Harris, has gone to some lengths to make sure their qualifications are recognised. We are seeing increasing numbers of different Ukrainian professionals being recognised here and working in the workforce.
I am aware of a transitional programme that the HSE is running which is attracting GPs from abroad. This is being done in conjunction with the Irish College of General Practitioners. Last year, the programme was successful in bringing 100 people from abroad through the transitional programme who will practise as GPs in the country this year. This year, the target is an additional 250 GPs.
The circular economy was mentioned. On 1 February 2024, as a Green Party Minister I have to acknowledge that today was the launch of the deposit return scheme, a very important day in the promotion not just of the simple idea of recycling plastic but the concept of a circular economy. People will become more conscious of it. The Minister, Deputy Smyth, is extremely conscious that we have to start at source and not just deal with the end product all the time. He is very much pushing that approach with the producers at all levels.
On social protection, the most recent budget was the first ever where benchmarking was used as part of the input process in the development of the decision-making process on the pension rate. I am pushing for the use of benchmarking for other social welfare payments for those of jobseeking age.
Under my responsibilities in the roadmap for social inclusion, I set up a food poverty working group several years ago. We have done some key pieces of work and research. Most important, we have set up a food poverty pilot programme, which I encourage the committee to look at. We are piloting a casework approach in three locations around the country through NGOs which operate food banks. When someone accesses a food bank, they are given the option to speak to a caseworker and sit down and go through their full situation. When someone goes to a food bank, obviously income is an issue. Very often, there are also other issues in the mix and services or other supports that the person was not aware of which could help them. The pilot is going very well and I will get an update on it in the next couple of weeks. It might be something the committee would be interested in exploring and teasing out. I am certainly eager to push it. It has proven to work well over the past couple of months.
The national implementation plan is expiring this year. Deputy Ó Cathasaigh and others were in a good position to press this with the Minister, Deputy Ryan, to make sure the next one is up and running on time. On benchmarking, the minimum essential standard of living, MESL, research is ongoing. We not only directly support it but we are very interested in it. It feeds into our budget decisions.
In terms of the recommendations in the report from the committee, we will have full detailed answers by next week. We have the bones of them here and I have indicated some of them. We will give the committee more detailed answers next week.
There was a question on the new social enterprise policy. We hope to launch it by the end of quarter 1 this year. That tidies up most of the questions. I thank the committee for bringing the sustainable development goals to light and life and starting a debate that I hope other committees will take on board.
I thank the Minister of State for his response. I will take up his suggestion on the food poverty pilot. I ask that when the report comes to him he circulates it to the committee. I can give him an assurance that the committee will look into it and would like to develop it. It is something the committee is committed to.
I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach of the committee, Deputy Ó Cathasaigh, for acting as rapporteur on this important issue and drafting this report. I thank the witnesses, those who made submissions, the members of the committee and the secretariat, in particular Haley O'Shea who was involved in drafting the report. I also thank the various Departments and officials for their assistance.
As a country, Ireland is proud of the role it has played in the creation of the sustainable development goals through the work of our former ambassador, David Donoghue, who worked very closely with the co-facilitator from Kenya, ambassador Macharia Kamau, and convinced the global community to agree to the most ambitious set of commitments in the history of the United Nations. While we secured a commitment from the global community individually and collectively to sign up to these goals, we must now ensure that these objectives are fully implemented at home and in every other nation on this planet.
As the first Minister with specific responsibility for co-ordinating the implementation of the sustainable development goals across the whole of government, in April 2018 I launched Ireland's first sustainable development goal national implementation plan which was focused on raising public awareness and engagement and aligning Ireland's national policies with these goals. In simple terms, the sustainable development goals are about getting governments and society to think and act differently. It is not about ideology; rather, it is about implementation in real and practical terms and breaking away from the old siloed thinking that says that a policy matter is someone else's problem or, worse still, that nobody has a responsibility to provide solutions.
The sustainable development goals are about the responsibility of each and every one of us to ensure that they are achieved and delivered. Delivering on the sustainable development goals can help us to achieve the objective of developing our public service to think and do things differently. The culture of saying "It is not my job" will not work if we are to achieve our objectives. We must bring the public and key players, such as NGOs, with us if we are to deliver the sustainable develop goals for everyone.
The parliamentary report presented by the Joint Committee on Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands, in reviewing the sustainable development goals and their adoption by Departments, is a pioneering effort in integrating the sustainable development goals into our institutional mechanisms and is instrumental in mainstreaming them into our policy and deliberative processes.
Our committee took a multifaceted approach, ensuring the SDGs are not only acknowledged in our activities but are also at the core of our legislative budgetary and oversight process. The fundamental first step taken in this process was to systematically review the implementation and delivery of the goals through meticulous mapping by the Oireachtas committee secretariat of the 169 SDG targets to the appropriate parliamentary committees. This mapping considers each target's lead Department, stakeholder Departments and the related national policies. Because our committee is one of the few parliamentary committees that has responsibility for more than one Department, it provided us with the ability to evaluate cross-departmental collaboration between the Department of Social Protection on one hand and the Department of Rural and Community Development on the other.
We also focused on understanding how these Departments internalise and operationalise the SDG targets within their policies and programmes. We were, as a committee, in a unique position to recognise the multifaceted nature of the SDG because of our extremely broad remit across all urban and rural communities as well as our island communities. As a result, we conducted extensive consultations with various stakeholders, which included Departments, NGOs, community groups and subject matter experts. These interactions provided diverse perspectives on the practical implementation and challenges of the sustainable development goals, including giving special attention to the unique challenges and opportunities in implementing the SDGs on the islands, acknowledging their geographic distinctiveness. Based on our findings, we formulated 17 target recommendations aimed at answering the effectiveness of SDG implementation. These recommendations are designed to be actionable and specific, catering to the distinct needs of the Departments under review and the other stakeholders Departments, where appropriate.
Finally, because the implementation of the SDGs is an evolving process, we adopted an iterative review approach as a committee with an annual review incorporated now into our work programme. This allows for continuous monitoring, feedback and adaptation of the strategies. We were the first committee to do this, but we hope we will act as a template, not just for other committees here in our national Parliament but other committees right across the globe to do the same thing in their own parliaments to ensure we raise all boats on this island, in our communities right across the country, and right across the globe. I commend the report to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Cuireadh an Dáil ar athló ar 3.34 p.m. go dtí 2 p.m., Dé Céadaoin, an 7 Feabhra 2024.
The Dáil adjourned at 3.34 p.m. until 2 p.m. on Wednesday, 7 February 2024.