Ms Caoimhe de Barra:

The most important point to be aware of is that Irish companies are no different from companies headquartered in any other European country. We are not immune by nature of our country's long history of support for and defence of human rights. Regarding the kinds of violations we are seeing, some companies that want to do the right thing find that they are stymied by the response they get - the lobbying and counteraction of positive steps they make wish to take. If legislation was in place that required companies to fulfil mandatory due diligence legislation, that counter pressure, which stops companies doing the right thing, would not have an effect and there would be an equal and level playing field for all companies.

Without going into details about a specific company or industry, prevention of harms is key. If due diligence is done on the supply chain in the extractive industry environment and the harms have occurred and will continue to occur are recognised in spite of the efforts of the company concerned to improve, future harms can be prevented and the Government can choose to disinvest in companies where there are evident harms that are not being prevented sufficiently. I will ask Dr. Widdis to speak on the legislative side.