Ms Siobhan Curran:

Trócaire is a member of the implementation group, which consists of Departments, NGOs and business community representatives. The group has met three times but it has yet to gain momentum and we have yet to see major outputs from it. We remain hopeful that the work of the group will proceed and we will start to see such outputs.

What we need in the first instance is a clear roadmap from Departments as to how the national plan will be implemented. It really is not civil society which has the power to do that. Unless we see those roadmaps from Departments, it will be difficult to see how the plan could be implemented. The second part is the actual plan itself. As Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan mentioned, it is weak. That needs to be improved. We are nearly at 2020. One can imagine a process to revise the plan will start at some point.

There are useful elements within the plan but the mandatory human rights due diligence is not yet part of that. If we were to prioritise one action which Ireland could proceed with, it is mandatory human rights due diligence. Ms Lawlor has outlined the steps towards that. The other important point is the implementation group does not in any way discuss the UN treaty to regulate transnational corporations. That has been kept outside of this implementation group. We would prefer to see it as part of it, as it is a business and human rights forum or space, but it has not been.