Ms Caoimhe de Barra:

I thank the Deputy for the question. It is very important. The principle that lies at the heart of the directive is important. This principle to be borne in mind is that the implementation should apply to the entire value chain and all companies and their value chains. However, the implementation needs to be proportionate to the size, scale, scope control and scope of influence of those companies and their supply chains. We differentiate between a large company that has a high degree of control and a smaller company that has a lower degree of control. That needs to remain at the forefront of the thinking around this legislation.

One aspect we are very concerned about is that we are hearing certain indications that there may be proposals to water down the thresholds. The thresholds are already extremely high. The thresholds currently in place would mean that 99% of European companies would not be affected. There are some suggestions that those thresholds would be raised higher. One area that could be focused on is changing the thresholds for high-risk sectors and broadening the number of sectors that are included as high risk. At the moment, there are only just three sectors that are included as high risk. For example, mining-----