Mr. Ross Fitzpatrick:

Absolutely. We are concerned because the Irish Government has had plenty of time since the publication of the omnibus proposals to outline its positions on these substantive issues, but it has not done so, for whatever reason. We are not sure whether that is because its position on these key issues has changed or whether it is happy to sit back and let other member states take the lead at Council level. It is deeply concerning because under the last Government, we saw a real commitment to a lot of the issues we have spoken about today. The current Government has been totally silent as far as we can see. Time is, therefore, of the essence.

It is also important to say that once the Council agrees on its common position, that is it. While there will be trilogue negotiations later in the year, which are negotiations between the Parliament, the Commission and the Council, the basis on which Ireland can influence those negotiations is the extent to which it tries to influence the Council’s position now. That is the crucial thing. It is too late when it comes to trialogue negotiations because the position could already be watered down much more than it has been so far. A particular ask we have of this committee is to write to the Minister for enterprise, Deputy Burke, to make that abundantly clear. We need to see a position from the Irish Government which sets out clear expectations that the CSDDD will not be watered down. That is a bare-minimum ask from our perspective.