Mr. Garry Walsh:

I will respond briefly, Chairman, to your last comment about the national plan. We were critical of the national plan which has now expired in that it did not promote or advance binding legislation on human rights due diligence. If there is to be a revised plan, whether it is put forward by the Department of Foreign Affairs or the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, we would like to see it emphasise support for a UN treaty and to support the initiation of the legislation on mandatory human rights due diligence we have been speaking about today. As Mr. O'Neill mentioned, we cannot go too slowly on the process of initiating legislation. That would be the priority for us. As I mentioned, Ireland is out of step so we should begin that. Indeed, beginning it before the EU directive could influence the EU to have a higher standard. The Dutch foreign minister has announced that the Netherlands will not be waiting around for the EU directive but will introduce a stronger and more robust proposal, which could have an impact in raising the standard for the more harmonised approach. We believe there is a very good argument for Ireland to follow suit. If Ireland was to introduce national legislation along the lines of the proposals we have set out, that could have a far-reaching impact in terms of setting the agenda and raising the bar at EU level.

I wished to mention that but also to say that we appreciate that there have been no dissenting voices and that this committee has been largely supportive of the proposals and recommendations we have made. We are very encouraged that the committee will write to the Tánaiste on this matter.