Patricia Stephenson (Social Democrats)

I welcome the Minister of State. I think this is the second time he has come in for a Commencement matter for me and I really appreciate his continued engagement on international development. I have asked him to come to the Chamber today to address the deeply concerning developments regarding the EU corporate sustainability due diligence directive, which I will refer to as CSDDD. It is a law that Ireland has rightly supported, and represents a hard-fought victory for corporate accountability, human rights and climate justice. The directive is not abstract or bureaucratic legislation. It is a direct response to very preventable human tragedies like the collapse of the Rana Plaza on 24 April 2013, when over 1,130 garment workers were crushed to death in Dhaka in Bangladesh while sewing clothes for European brands like Zara, Benetton and Penneys. Completely structurally unsound and built without proper permits, the building fell on itself the day after visible cracks were ignored by factory owners. Those lives were lost because profit was prioritised over safety and because there were no legal obligations on companies to prevent or respond to such corporate abuses in their supply chains.

The CSDDD legislation was designed precisely to prevent this kind of harm, by making due diligence mandatory, enforceable and accountable across the EU. It is the product of decades of advocacy and built on key voluntary frameworks including the UN guiding principles on business and human rights and the OECD guidelines for multinational enterprises. After two years of intense negotiations, the directive was finally passed and entered into force in July 2024 with member states including Ireland being required to transpose it into national law by July 2026. Just months after this important victory, however, the European Commission has tabled its Omnibus 1 proposal under the banner of cutting red tape. This is a dangerous misrepresentation. The omnibus proposal actually goes much further, threatening to dismantle the vital protections and safeguards for basic rights of workers and vulnerable communities, both in Ireland and around the world. Far from being a technical simplification, the proposed changes would undermine the very core of the corporate sustainability due diligence directive. They do so by diluting the due diligence duty and weakening the legal obligations on companies to prevent and address human rights and environmental abuses; removing the EU-wide civil liability regime, thereby stripping victims of a clear and enforceable route to justice; eliminating the requirement for companies to implement climate transition plans; and limiting stakeholder engagement, silencing effective communities and workers. This process has been completely rushed without proper consultation or impact assessments. It is in direct contradiction of the EU Commission's better regulations principles, which are supposed to guarantee transparency, evidence-based policymaking and public input.

I acknowledge the statement made by the former Minster of State with responsibility for this directive, the Minister, Deputy Calleary, shortly before it officially entered into force. He affirmed that Ireland had consistently supported the objectives of the CSDDD and called for ambition in the protections it would provide. His remarks clearly reflect a commitment by the Government to ensuring this legislation would be both meaningful and enforceable, yet today the commitment is lacking. Despite the Government's stated position that it supports the simplification agenda only insofar as it does not undermine human rights and environmental protections, Ireland has remained worryingly silent during ongoing Council negotiations on the omnibus proposal I acknowledge that some of those negotiations are probably confidential. I am sure that will be one of the Minister of State's responses. We have failed to join like-minded member states in actively defending the core provisions in the directive, provisions that now pose a real risk of weakening or removing some of those protections altogether. The silence does matter. The omnibus proposals do not represent minor adjustments. They are an unravelling of these hard-won protections. It would be a profound setback not just for corporate accountability but for the EU's credibility when it comes to upholding human rights and environmental rights.

Will Ireland be publicly defending the core provisions of the CSDDD, acknowledging the limitations the Minister of State may have when it comes to the specifics of the negotiations? What is Ireland's position on the four key areas under threat, namely, the due diligence duty, the EU-wide civil liability regime, the implementation of climate transition plans and the stakeholder engagement component? Will Ireland be taking a clear and vocal stance at the upcoming meetings at Council level in Brussels? I believe the Minister of State may have been at a meeting on this yesterday. Will Ireland be pushing back against the different roll-backs of the provisions that are fundamental for the human rights and environmental protections?