Patricia Stephenson (Social Democrats)

I am grateful to the Minister of State for his commitment to those four areas and putting it on the record. I recognise what he says about simplification not being a race to the bottom and it is not about deregulation.

We met Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment officials yesterday at the enterprise committee and had a good engagement with them there. I was concerned with their emphasis on the due diligence approach not being watered down. I disagree with that entirely in terms of the omnibus proposals. I feel that the risk-based approach in the CSDDD provided more simplification for the supply chain. The new proposal is an omnibus, focusing only on tier 1, which means that human rights and environmental abuses will not be identified. That is concerning.

The Department officials also emphasised that plausible information is the new tool under the due diligence procedure. However, plausible information is not actually a legal concept under EU law. It places an undue burden on NGOs and civil society stakeholders, which we directly fund through the Department’s work in Irish Aid and through human rights work that we fund. It is a particular concern for me that we are hearing something from the Department of enterprise that I do not think is in line with our human rights obligations around the due diligence duty we have.