Ms Caoimhe de Barra:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to present this morning. Trócaire is the chair of the ICBHR, which is a broad civil society coalition that brings together organisations working with human rights defenders, development organisations, environmental organisations and trade unions. Through the everyday work we do our organisations witness at first-hand the impact of corporate harms on the communities we work with. These harms include human rights violations such as child labour, land grabs, attacks on human rights defenders and violence against women. We also witnesses significant environmental harms, such as deforestation, oil spills and unchecked carbon emissions. Those who stand up to defend their communities against corporate exploitation are increasingly under threat, as Ms Lawlor outlined. The uncomfortable truth is also that many European countries are linked to these types of harms. In fact, a number of businesses based in Ireland have been linked to human rights violations through their global value chains and our coalition has documented some of these in our recent report entitled, Make it Your Business.

This is a global issue. Through my work I have met many brave men and women affected by corporate harms in communities in Guatemala, Myanmar, Honduras, Palestine and other countries. These have included communities who have had their land confiscated, forests cut down, water polluted and who have even lost family and community members. Those people were murdered for daring to stand up and defend their communities against corporate interests. To meaningfully address these violations, we need stronger legislative frameworks that can prevent such harms from happening and provide access to justice for victims when violations happen. As such, our coalition is encouraged to see the EU propose the corporate sustainability due diligence directive. Our coalition strongly welcomes this new directive and we particularly welcome the inclusion of civil liability within the draft. However, there are significant weaknesses and some serious flaws in the draft text that risk it being ineffective.

First, the scope of the directive applies to far too few businesses. Under these new rules, 99% of businesses will be excluded. We estimate fewer than 700 Irish companies will be covered. Second, we are concerned companies will only be required to assess their value chains where they have established business relationships and, therefore, the full extent of value chains will not be covered. Often, and primarily in many cases, it is in informal work we see most rights abuses. Third, victims and rights holders are not the primary focus of the draft directive. It is weak on meaningful engagement with communities, unions and the protection of human rights defenders. The draft also fails to address the gender dimensions of corporate harm and is weak in its gender response.

There is an urgency to this matter. As this directive is being negotiated in not just the coming months but in the coming weeks at the Council, we recommend the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment leads on outlining a clear policy position of the Government on the corporate sustainability due diligence directive and seeks to raise the ambition of the directive and address the weaknesses I have outlined and the Government outlines a clear timeframe with steps for the preparatory work, development and ultimate transposition and implementation of the directive in Irish law, and we respectfully suggest this committee support these recommendations and conduct further hearings with experts and carry out full pre-legislative reviews of the draft directive. As I mentioned, there is an urgency to this matter. This morning we learned that under the Czech Presidency of the EU Competitiveness Council, proposals may be made available to ambassadors as early as 26 or 28 October. Fundamentally, if we fail to adequately address the exploitation, violence and pollution we are currently seeing in the value chains of our everyday products, such as our clothes, phones and food, then we will have missed a historic opportunity and will have failed in our responsibility to respect, promote and protect human rights.