Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Human rights abuses are never appropriate and no company is immune to engaging in them regardless of its size. Sorcha Tunney, the co-ordinator for the Irish Coalition for Business and Human Rights, stated recently "We need to take forced labour, deforestation and oil spills out of our shopping baskets once and for all, but this proposal just doesn't go far enough and is riddled with loopholes." The current guidelines as they stand will exclude 99% of companies. Only 1% of companies will be included. The reality is that any size of company can engage in human rights abuses or environmental destruction or both. Therefore the directive on corporate sustainability and due diligence has to be sufficiently broad and strong to reflect this. I am worried that the Minister of State stated that some companies may not be able to put the necessary checks and balances in place and make the changes that will be needed, because we are talking about changes that will prevent human rights and environmental abuses. It should apply in the broadest sense to as many companies as possible. I do not believe any company can claim immunity just by virtue of its size. We are talking about human rights abuses, we are talking about environmental destruction.

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