Mr. Ross Fitzpatrick:

I totally agree with Ms Clarke that we have a crucial window of time to influence the negotiations which are happening at Council level. Unfortunately, thus far the Irish Government has not outlined its position on the core issues that we have described. We have met with officials from the Departments of foreign affairs and enterprise on numerous occasions. The only real position we have managed to elicit from those meetings is that Ireland is in favour of the simplification agenda but that it does not want to see human rights and environmental protections undone. If that is the case, the time to speak up is now rather than in six months' time when this directive has been completely gutted at Brussels level. As Ms Clarke said, we have heard the Government has been silent, despite many other member states speaking out. There is an opportunity to speak out and defend these core provisions of the directive.

In the context of the Deputy's question on whether companies need more time, it is worth remembering that the original proposal as regards to CSDDD was made in 2022. It is also worth mentioning that only the very largest companies are targeted by this directive. In other words, companies with more than 1,000 employees and an annual net turnover of €450 million. Those companies have adequate resources to be able to plan for and implement a directive like this. I do not agree that companies need more time than they have already had to prepare for the introduction of this law.