Ms Mary Lawlor:

It is good that we have a plan. Some 16 member states have adopted national action plans and there are moves across Europe for more. Business and human rights will not go away. It is becoming more important and is recognised as such. It is good that we have a plan, the baseline study and the business and human rights implementation group.

The plan started in 2017 but the implementation group was only set up and met for the first time this year. It is early days. However, we have not seen, as yet, a rigorous attempt by the business and human rights implementation group to integrate the UN guiding principles into its work and to measure the principles in the plan. There has been no talk of human rights due diligence, as far as I am aware. I am not on the committee but Ms Curran is. I made a presentation to it several weeks ago.

The State, in all its activities and all companies to which it is giving contracts, should put in these conditions. Looking at the procurement page, it would be simple to establish a principle that all Government contracts include a condition that bidders must demonstrate compliance with the UN guiding principles. This could be done through the Office of Government Procurement and implemented in stages. Perhaps first it could require companies provide a statement, unverified in the beginning, as to their compliance. Later it could be demonstrated through independent verification. That could involve exceeding an minimum score in the benchmark.

The first point, however, is that companies are unaware of their obligations under the UN guiding principles. They really do not have a clue. If the State put in place such an amendment to procurement contracts, it would create awareness. Companies would obviously have to comply to get a Government contract. This would then be a lead. As we know, small things lead to bigger things. These could be assessed and, hopefully over time, human rights and environmental due diligence would become mandatory. It will never come by itself. The only way is to develop a process by which eventually companies will comply properly.