Dr. Rachel Widdis:

I am happy to answer some of those questions and then pass them on, if that is okay. I thank the Deputy. He made some interesting points.

This is my day job. What I do is advise these large companies that fall within this legislation. The point is, most of those companies have chosen to adopt the UN guiding principles, UNGPs. They have voluntarily chosen to invest and work hard. It is not all pretty but they really work at implementing it. They do not have a level playing field because other companies that are not doing that are selling God knows what produced by people whose labour rights are in dark situations. The question is whether we in the EU will be happy with that. Companies want a level playing field as well. Many very large companies have consistently supported this legislation and are angry about the omnibus and the lack of consultation with those companies that were supporters during the omnibus. As the Deputy said, we have to have a level playing field in Europe. Otherwise, there would a competitive disadvantage. We are saying that companies that operate in Europe, or generate large revenues in Europe by selling their products into Europe, must abide by certain standards. We know that the voluntary option has not worked. We know that it just has not been implemented. The core of the CSDDD is to prevent harm occurring in the first place. What can possibly be bad about that? How can that not be an objective?

I will make a point on information requests. There is a new information standard in the omnibus called the voluntary sustainability reporting standard, VSME. People can only ask for that kind of information, if they have a good reason, from companies with fewer than 500 employees. Those are already large companies. This information only concerns their own workforce. There is no information on communities. I have looked at it and it is limited. A company doing its due diligence will not get the information it needs from the VSME.

Everyone is included upstream. As to downstream, though, the CSDDD is already limited to distribution, transport and storage. It does not include the downstream of the financial sector, which is everything that sector does. The omnibus would permanently take out the financial sector instead of including it into a review built into the CSDDD. That is important.

The Deputy asked about the enforcement aspect. There were to be fines of not more than 5% linked to turnover, which is a pretty stiff fine. The omnibus would remove that harmonised level, so we will get a lack of equality between countries or a race to the bottom, to use another term. The fine would not have to be linked to turnover. Those are key changes in the detail.

I agree with the Deputy. I have been out in the fields and on farms and have spoken to the women who cannot feed their children because of environmental damage. They cannot grow crops and they cannot fish; they cannot do anything. One of the first things they do is take their girls out of school because they cannot afford to send them.

That is the reality. I am not in an NGO, but I have done this work for companies and that is what I find when I go out. This is the reality of what happens.