Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As I said earlier I will personally meet representatives of the ICBHR and the other bodies in the coming weeks. SMEs are not within the scope directly but may be indirectly affected. Deputy O'Reilly confirmed what the thresholds are. We currently consider these thresholds to be appropriate. While I hear the Deputy's criticisms, it should be noted that the cohort of companies within those thresholds accounts for some 50% of the annual turnover of all the companies within the EU. It is important to ensure that the right companies are within the scope, namely, those companies with the potential to make significant adverse impacts on human rights and environmental matters and which, through their actions, have the ability to change value chains and change these matters. By extending the threshold the concern is you will take in much smaller companies that are not in a position to make the kind of changes that are necessary. The aim is to reach a degree of appropriateness in regard to the transposition of this directive. I certainly will pursue those issues. We will come back to the House on it.

See this speech in context