Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. It is good to hear the Government opposed the watering-down that happened at the latest European Council meeting. Reuters reported that at an earlier stage in the negotiations the Government indicated it wanted to exclude asset managers and institutional investors from the scope and that it said in a submission it could not signal its agreement to including financial undertakings. Was that accurate?

Oxfam's lead on this has commented about the effective exclusion of the financial sector, in that whether to include that sector is left up to the member states. The consequence will be the financial sector can continue to bankroll human rights violations and damage to the planet without being held accountable as it remains up to each European country to decide whether it wants to make banks and other financial player clean up business. We could have huge investment in fossil fuels by private investors, the destruction of indigenous peoples' living conditions and environment and these private entities can now be excluded by member states.

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