Ms Caoimhe de Barra:

One thing that is very important is directors' responsibility. Again, we have heard that there are some indications that in a watered down text, the concept of directors' responsibility could be removed. What we would all recognise is that where the board of directors and senior management take responsibility, company behaviour changes radically and profoundly. We have all seen in the past that where voluntary initiatives fail, it is because directors and senior managers take no notice of them because they are not obliged to in any way observe, measure and report on them. We think that maintaining directors' responsibility in the text is extremely important. We believe this is something Ireland could and should stand over. It is worrisome that there is the potential for this to be removed because it is probably the fastest way to achieve a change in corporate responsibility.

Regarding the Deputy's question around gender and gender responsiveness, this is very important because women are disproportionately affected by abuses within supply chains. Women are disproportionately affected by inequality under legislation and in social norms and practices in all environments but particularly where the egregious human rights violations are most likely to happen. In the case of women human rights defenders, as Ms Lawlor said, companies should be required to protect human rights defenders who speak out about corporate violations. We have to distinguish between what are the risks for female and male human rights defenders. The types of attacks on women human rights defenders will be different in some respects from those directed against men. They will be threatened, harassed and abused on the basis of their gender. They will be accused of being prostitutes, bad mothers and failures in their society. Women cannot simply be protected by being removed from their family homes and communities because they have responsibilities within their families so the protections for female human rights defenders will often be different from protections for male human rights defenders. At the moment, there is no recognition that women workers in the supply chain are disproportionately affected by abuses and disproportionately not protected. The rights of women in terms of the right to own land, the right to a contract in their place of work and the right to protection under labour legislation are often entirely different from the rights afforded to men. We definitely need to see that recognised.