Marie Sherlock (Labour)
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I pay tribute to the sterling work of Ms Lawlor and her team, Front Line Defenders, and Trócaire and the Irish Coalition for Business and Human Rights. This will be a groundbreaking directive both for trade unionists throughout the world and those exposing environmental degradation if it is enacted in the spirit in which it was originally intended. As our guests detailed, there has been a significant and worrying degree of watering down the proposal, and the lack of engagement by the Government has been worrying as well, although I will take what Deputy Flaherty said about that hopefully going to change.

The focus of this meeting has been on the case for a mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence framework, but I want to ask about how that due diligence framework would complement the need to put in place an outright ban on certain practices. I am looking, in particular, at what is happening with regard to cotton products from the Xinjiang province in China. The US has moved ahead on that and the EU appears to be still thinking about it, if I am up to date on that. There is a role for outright bans. Our guests talked about the supply chain legislation that is in place. They might speak to how they see the framework that will be in the directive being complemented by outright bans. My concern is that once this directive has been enacted, a view may be taken whereby people will say we no longer need to instigate outright bans on certain practices such as forced labour because the framework will be in place.