Dr. Chris O'Connell:

The point here, though, to bring it back to the key issue we are discussing, is that the omnibus proposal moves away from the risk-based approach. If the committee can take one point away from this today, it is the agreement between ourselves, as a coalition, and IBEC on the importance of maintaining the risk-based approach, which is very much in the crosshairs of omnibus. Some states are speaking out in favour of its retention, as we understand, at Council level.

We are not clear on whether Ireland is in favour of this, but we would very much like to see it happen. We urge the Government to stand with that. There is agreement on maintaining the harmonised civil liability regime also. Those two points would be important to stress. If we go with the omnibus approach that is on the table, it very much puts the burden on the tier 1 suppliers - direct business partners and companies - to do the body of their due diligence unless there is some plausible information that comes from other sources. I am happy to talk about that.

In my opening statement, I spoke about the extent to which civil society space is being closed. If journalists, human rights defenders and academics are being repressed in many parts of the world, where does this plausible information come from? We are in agreement that the risk-based approach is the correct approach. In those circumstances, as Dr. Widdis has said, the scenario of a smaller company in Ireland becomes much less relevant and the focus goes much more on the global value chains of these large corporations. If the omnibus proposal as it is now goes ahead, however, those direct business partners - the tier 1 suppliers - come much more into focus and are much more likely to become the subject of a passing of responsibility as has been the case in Germany under its version of the supply chain law.