National and international commitments

At a national level, the Revenue Commissioners called for the SoS to include its commitment to the discharge of statutory and policy obligations contained in the “Corporate Governance Standard for the Civil Service and the Code of Practice for the Governance of State Bodies”.

Six submissions (Tusla, UNESCO Chair (ITT), IDEA, Coalition 2030, DCCAE, NYCI) made recommendations related to Department-level actions on European and international commitments, with a particular focus on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Coalition 2030 called for the Department to “incorporate the SDGs as a core framework for the new Statement of Strategy” and to “prioritise the SDG framework as part of policy-planning, assessment and delivery”. They also recommended examining the impact of the pandemic on SDG targets, as well as how SDG mainstreaming and implementation can be used as a means of increasing resilience to the pandemic. IDEA reiterated this and recommended initiating “a new Anti-poverty, Social Inclusion and Community Development Action Plan” framed by the SDGs that accounts for the impacts of the pandemic.

Coalition 2030 also called for the SoS to

prioritise engagement in the Inter-Departmental Working Group on SDGs and the Senior Officials Group on the SDGs in order to ensure coherence in the Government’s approach”, and to include “a commitment to support the ongoing development of a new National SDG Implementation Plan for publication in 2021 and engage with civil society through the associated Stakeholder Forum.

The DCCAE noted how Annex III of the National SDG Implementation Plan requires Departments to “include reference in all new Statements of Strategy to all SDG targets for which a Department has lead responsibility” from 2018 onwards. The UNESCO Chair (ITT) noted that they would welcome opportunities to collaborate with the Department on their international commitments, particularly those relating to the intersections between the SDGs, human rights and sport. Meanwhile, IDEA and NYCI called for the Department to work with the ‘development education’ sector to integrate the achievement of SDG 4.7 (related to development education) into the Department’s SoS.

In relation to its national and international climate commitments, the DCCAE called for the Department to observe Ireland’s national, EU, and UN climate commitments within the SoS, by acknowledging the leadership role held by the public sector in achieving these commitments. The DCCAE drew attention to public sector decarbonisation and energy targets in the Programme for Government and Climate Action Plan, as each agency and office under the Department will soon be required to adopt a “climate mandate” to “support climate action within their own operations and among their clients and suppliers”. The DCCAE also highlighted how the current Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Bill - which is due to be enacted before the end of 2020 - will introduce a “system of 5-year economy-wide carbon budgets” and provide for “annual revision to the Climate Action Plan, which requires action across the public sector”.