Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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123. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment further to Parliamentary Question No. 62 of 27 October 2022, the status of his Department’s engagement with the Department of Foreign Affairs regarding the development of a second national action plan on business and human rights; the status of his Department’s work on the development of policy on business and human rights, as per recommendation 10 of the 2021 Review of implementation of National Plan on Business and Human Rights 2017 – 2020; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [62037/22]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, Ireland's first National Plan on Business and Human Rights was launched by the Department of Foreign Affairs towards the end of 2017. The implementation of this whole-of-Government plan was overseen by a multi-stakeholder implementation group comprised of representatives of Government, civil society and business, including from my own Department.

Both the plan itself and the Programme for Government committed to a review of implementation of the plan, and this was undertaken by the Department of Foreign Affairs in 2021. The Government noted the review at its meeting on 3 December 2021 and it is available on the Department of Foreign Affairs website.

Discussions are continuing about the best approach to a new plan and to advancing effective action on business and human rights, and officials in my Department continue to engage with colleagues in the Department of Foreign Affairs on this.

My Department continues to play a central role in the development of policy on particular aspects of business and human rights in line with the recommendations of the 2021 review. In particular, my Department is actively engaged on a number of important EU instruments, namely the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and the recent proposal from the Commission to ban forced labour products from the single market.