Eoin Hayes (Dublin Bay South, Social Democrats)

I thank all of the witnesses for coming in and making those contributions. I know it is quite difficult to prepare for these meetings so I really appreciate their submissions and all of their contributions so far. On a few points of commentary before I ask some individual questions, I am very concerned about the watering down of the omnibus and the legislative provisions. The other day, I asked the Taoiseach about a flooding event and flood insurance. There was a study in Galway that said the storm surges during Storm Éowyn would have been twice as high had they happened a week earlier and they would have submerged both Galway and Limerick cities. The urgency and importance of these climate change measures is absolutely critical. I really want to see that pushed forward, both from a climate change perspective but also from a human rights basis.

I am a business owner. I have run a small business, so I understand the regulatory burden and what that means for many businesses. However, if we were to go back a few decades or centuries to before accounting standards came in, we might have been having the same discussion about regulatory burden, how it was very difficult and how we would have to put headcount against it, create new departments and all that kind of stuff. Voluntary accounting standards did not work for financial transparency back then and voluntarily standards for climate change and sustainability would be problematic as well. I completely understand there are costs to businesses. I absolutely accept that but over time, we get to a level playing field and a mature stage where we have the green Deloittes that are doing some of these kinds of work for some of the businesses.

I have a few questions but I have a few bits of commentary that may inform some of the questions. The business terminations question is a very interesting one. There are business termination issues in some other jurisdictions - it is not too big in Ireland - and in the US, for example, you have to terminate business relationships on a variety of grounds. Banking regulation obviously restricts that as well. There is some precedent for that and I would like to get some commentary, particularly from IBEC, about how that is perceived.

Harmonisation is critical and a risk-based approach is critical. To take the Draghi report as an example, there is a lot of conversation about reduction of regulation coming from that report. When you read the report, he talked a lot more about simplification, harmonisation and making sure that transposition happens appropriately. If there was any commentary on that, it would be helpful. I am also conscious we are at the very early stages of climate regulation. We have not talked about scope 2 or scope 3 emissions and how they will be accounted for in wider regulatory environments. That is deeply concerning, particularly when you look at the financial sector and the fact we have not tackled in the biggest elephant in the room in climate change, which is: what is the role of finance? At a European level, that is particularly significant.

I have some pointed questions and the first are for Dr. O'Connell. I am very conscious of the obligations we should have as a European community nation and a developed world nation to the developing world. How does Dr. O'Connell see this regulation helping in that and how much further should we be going? What other things should we be looking for to happen in this legislation? I would like to hear a little bit more about enforcement mechanisms from Ms Clarke and Dr. Widdis. I feel like one of the biggest problems that happens all the time within legislation is that we do not put the enforcement mechanism in there and we end up with the same results. What would they like to see from that?

Lastly, could Mr. Willoughby and Dr. McGann talk a little bit about that regulatory burden in the SME sector. What is their experience of that and what does that look like in terms of real costs? I am conscious that one of the discussions we want to have across the committee is supporting the cost of businesses. Is there a role for the State in that? For example, is there a role for Enterprise Ireland to front the cost of this for small businesses so they do not see it take from their bottom lines and we get unnecessary business strain, at least in the short term. I thank the witnesses for their time.