Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 19 October 2022
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation
Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals
Ms Mary Lawlor:
This is something we started some time ago. That study was the third one and there will be another one next year. The idea is to measure compliance on the companies' own published information with the UN guiding principles on business and human rights. It is only what they have said themselves, so it is quite shocking that they are so ill-informed and do not understand their obligations. That being said, we have noted over the previous two benchmarks, as we call them, that more businesses are willing to engage now. There have been some improvements in some companies as a result of being benchmarked by Trinity. We hope that this will act as a kind of motivator and create awareness and lead to behavioural change by companies here.