Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 19 October 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals

Mr. Ed O'Donovan:

To come back to the Deputy's point about retaliation, there is a well-established framework around the protection of whistleblowers and human rights activists who are at risk for speaking up. There have been a number of companies with which we have been in touch and which have taken steps when we have informed them that there is a human rights defender at risk because of their opposition on human rights grounds to that company's policy. Numerous guidance documents have been published directing business and investors how to take steps to ensure that retaliation does not happen. All of that work and knowledge is already out there. It comes back to the point about education and raising awareness. The European Union has been working on the issue of the protection of human rights defenders for 20 years. All those frameworks and models are out there. It is just about raising awareness and education.