Mr. Neil Willoughby:

Absolutely. In talking about cost of compliance, going back to the Senator's first question, the fundamental issue with the corporate sustainability reporting directive is to differentiate between that and the corporate sustainability due diligence directive. When we talk about sustainability reporting, that is bringing it on a par with financial reporting, meaning that companies need to do all the things they need to do on financial reporting. They need to audit and go through all those processes within their companies to gather all the information and make sure it is correct in order to comply with the legislation. That incurs enormous costs and is something companies cannot do themselves; they need to rely on third parties to do that auditing process.

The costs under the CSRD are already significant to those within scope. The cost and time investment from our companies, not only to prepare for the future changes with the omnibus, but also in recent years to prepare to comply with existing requirements, have been significant. It is similar to Brexit and trying to prepare for the changes in the customs requirements in the scale of work we had to do with our companies which my colleague Ms McGann led throughout that process. It is certainly an ongoing concern, specifically with the CSRD, to distinguish between the two.

The Senator asked about diverting resources away. Mr. Fitzpatrick has already mentioned explicitly the legislation that already applies both to the State and to companies in various sectors at a European and national level. That legislation is already in place, and companies have to comply with that. That is clear and straightforward. In addition, they would have to go for sustainability reporting. Taking into account things like energy costs and other different costs that arise, those are definitely areas that can be addressed for business. Those are things we address in the business ambition campaign we launched in recent weeks.