Mr. Ronnie Downes:

There are a number of things here. Just last year, we strengthened our own control of exports legislation. We had control of exports legislation from 2008, taking account of EU regulations and international developments. We introduced new legislation, namely, the Control of Exports Act 2023, which solidifies our basis for taking action and our enforcement regime. That is due to be commenced in the first half of this year and there is a new IT system to streamline how these cases are processed and handled.

The other issue is corporate sustainability due diligence. The OECD has due diligence guidelines as well to which multinational companies are expected to adhere. That is a separate but complementary or adjacent area that puts power in the hands of shareholders and stakeholders and extra responsibilities on the part of company managers and directors to make sure they are in a position to stand over the basis on which trade is done and supply chains are managed. It goes back to something I mentioned at the outset about the increased prominence that is being given to environmental, social, governance, ESG, matters in the corporate world, which are being toughened up and given legal effect including through these EU regulations. There are Irish companies that we engage with. As we are the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, we of course have a lot of engagement with stakeholders and the business community large and small. We are doing a lot of work with the business stakeholder community and with the wider business of human rights agenda to make sure that these issues, including dual-use issues and responsible business issues are given proper effect. Some of them will require extra bureaucratic overheads for companies, particularly for smaller companies, to make sure they are doing everything they need to do to satisfy themselves, their shareholders, their bigger companies in the supply chain that they can all stand over the quality, ethics and robustness of the different dimensions of the supply chain. There is a lot of work going on in this area of which the dual-use aspect is just one small strand.