Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Yes. This links into it, if you will just let me finish, Acting Chairperson. Mary Lawlor is the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders. She highlighted to me the need to include human rights defenders as stakeholders in the EU directive. I think this Bill will help us strengthen the EU directive. As a country, since we have this strong improvement to the law around volunteers being protected, perhaps we could look at bringing that to EU level. I will probably work with our MEPs on this as well. This law will help us to bring the case to EU level to make sure that the directive is watertight in protecting people such as the front-line defenders, who are volunteers and who are now protected in the amendment the Government is bringing in.

This is very relevant in some ways because we are talking about human rights. We all know that if one puts one's head above the parapet, often one gets into trouble. In Ireland we are very lucky in some ways because, as countries go and protest goes, it is a very safe place for freedom of speech, speaking out and calling out issues around employment and companies, whereas in other countries one sees people such as the girl in Togo who has been in jail for the past three and a half years. She is an Irish citizen and nothing is happening. There are no supports for her at all. That would not happen in Ireland. We can give out about this country all we want but it is a really safe place to be a protestor and to be a worker who stands up for one's rights, compared with other countries, where people get jailed just for asking questions.

That is why this Bill is so important. If we want to set the standards, as we are doing today with this legislation, improving Irish law to protect volunteers, including people such as front-line defenders, we could take that to the EU directive and maybe look at strengthening the wording of this directive to make it watertight for people. As someone who has never been able to keep her mouth shut in calling out problems from a very young age, I feel the need to speak up for others who do so on much more serious cases. The human rights abuses that go on in other countries are appalling, as we know. We do not always think about it when we spend our money, unfortunately, but it is really good that we have this in place today. I hope we can set the standards higher for the EU. I am sorry for mentioning one Irish company, but I hope that all Irish companies, no matter where they are in the world, be it Russia, Colombia, Togo or South America - Irish companies are very successful - see all the humans they deal with as equals and treat them as we would want our own to be treated. This legislation makes it such that everybody is treated well and their human rights are respected. We should expect the same from every Irish company anywhere in the world.