Mr. Conor O'Neill:

I will brief to allow for more questions to be raised. I will briefly respond to some questions raised by the Chairman and Deputy Stanton.

I very much take on board the point on the functional operation of a system like this. What we have tried to do in our research, working with Dr. Rachel Widdis in Trinity law school who is an expert in this area especially around access to justice, is to examine the way these different systems work in other European jurisdictions and draw a line between them to set out the core principles we believe need to underpin an effective law. We have tried to be propositional on that but we also very much recognise there will be the unique characteristics of the Irish system. Much preparatory work needs to happen in Ireland. Similarly, we know an EU directive will be coming forward. Our core message in our engagement with different Departments, Ministers and this committee is not to wait for that directive but to act now. We know there will probably be a lead-in time of a number of years for member states to transpose that directive domestically but I hope there will also be a need to engage with our coalition, with impacted communities and possibly consult business groups such as IBEC, and all of that will take time. We would like people to work across two or three Departments, including the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Department of Justice in terms of access to Irish courts, and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment to begin a discussion on the way that would work in an Irish context. That would involve beginning drafting; an assessment of the current gaps in the Irish system and what would need to change across those three Ministries to make an effective system; and the publication of the heads of legislation that could be brought before this committee and others and debated in Parliament to make sure there is democratic engagement. We have set this out in the report. There are key questions about how this works in terms of the scope, what businesses are covered, potential liability and reform of access to courts systems to make sure justice is effective. Those are all issues that need to be thoroughly ventilated in detail in spaces such as this committee. If we act now, there is no risk of us going too fast. That work will take time. We would very much offer the expertise of our membership from trade unions, academics and development organisations to assist in the work but there is a risk in waiting for an EU directive, waiting again to start the preparatory work at some imagined point in the future and perhaps coming back to this committee before then and members hearing more stories of impacted communities such as those Ms Parra has set out.

It is difficult to seek justice through other courts We mentioned the OECD case we have taken with Ms Mateus Parra's organisation, CAJAR, other Colombian partners and the Global Legal Action Network, GLAN. It has been difficult and slow. It is a semi-judicial mechanism. There was a great example of that in the Netherlands in recent years related to Royal Dutch Shell. It is the biggest European oil company with a market capitalisation of more than US $150 billion. It was operating in Nigeria. More than 30 million people were living in the area and since the 1950s an estimated 11 million barrels of oil were spilled leading to widespread pollution, health problems and areas becoming uninhabitable. Four brave people who were impacted took a court case against Shell in the Dutch courts and, incredibly, they won but it took them 13 years to get a judgment and in those 13 years two of the defendants died before they could see some justice delivered. There is a principle there. There are some limited and imperfect examples of how it has worked. We want countries such as the Netherlands, Ireland, France and the other countries that have led on human rights to make those systems more efficient and ensure they work quickly, and to make sure communities do not have to wait for more than a decade for justice when their human rights have been abused.