Mr. Colm Forde:

I guess the ambition is that what the large companies would seek would be quite limited. If I hear the Senator's query correctly, the regulation speaks about it being limited to companies with fewer than 500 employees. I get the sense the Senator is talking about companies with significantly fewer employees than that. It is difficult to envisage a situation where a company of the scale the Senator is referencing would be asked for a substantive amount of information under this directive.

The Senator may have missed my contribution earlier when I referred to research the Department had undertaken with Amárach Research to see how important sustainability was for companies. For four out of five companies, it was very important for a range of reasons, for instance, for doing the right thing and to improve their competitiveness. I also referenced the range of supports available to companies through Enterprise Ireland and the local enterprise offices to help companies in that journey. We are conscious of what impact any commitment to sustainability might have on companies and we are trying to help them as much as we can on that journey.