Paul Murphy: Warns directive could be watered down by lobbyists

Thanks a lot, and thanks a lot for the presentations and the work. Just to start to say, I think, look, this is a potentially very important directive in terms of putting real pressure on companies to respect human rights and the environment, but from hearing what you're saying, there's obviously a real danger that it gets watered down. I have no question, having been in the European Parliament, that there is an army of lobbyists probably currently working on behalf of large sections of big business to water it down and ensure that it's something that remains on paper effectively an exercise in corporate washing and green washing. I think it is quite concerning that the Irish government has not publicly put a position on the various things that are in discussion at council level and the fact that there's no progress in terms of Irish legislation. Just to start, if I could ask you to speak a little bit, there's an excellent report by the ICBHR called Make It Your Business, which speaks about the role of corporations in terms of human rights and some of the abuses that take place. And I think people might be a little bit shocked about the role of Irish corporations in this. People can have the idea that it's Chinese corporations or US corporations, they're the ones that are doing bad things around the world. But without speaking about specific companies, because unfortunately, we're not allowed to, is it possible to speak a little bit about some of the bad practices that are happening down the supply chain in which Irish farmers are involved? I think the most important things have to be aware of. The first thing to be aware of is that Irish companies are no different to companies headquartered in any other European country, so we are not immune by nature of our country's long history of support and defence of human rights. The kinds of violations that we are seeing are, for some companies that want to do the right thing, they find that they are stymied by the response that they get, by the lobbying, by the counteraction of positive steps that they may wish to take. What we feel is that if there was legislation in place which required companies to fulfil mandatory due diligence legislation, then that counter pressure which stops companies doing the right thing would not have an effect and there would be an equal and level playing field for all companies. Another example, again without going into details of a specific company or industry, but prevention of harms is key. Prevention of harms, so if you do due diligence on a supply chain for argument's sake in the extractive industry environment and you recognise that harms have taken place and will continue to take place in spite of efforts by the companies perhaps to improve, then future harms can be protected, and the government can choose to disinvest from companies where there are evident harms that are not being protected enough. Maybe I will ask Rachel to come in on the legislative side. Rachel Wynne- Yeah, just to talk about the lack of access to remedy, Deputy, and we need to recognise that this is, I know we may think that there is a lot of regulation, but the area of the impact of business on human rights, it stands outside that. There is very little or no access to remedy for those who are affected, so I have worked on the litigation side and the cases that are being taken, in particular in the UK Supreme Court, against parent companies for their link to the activities of their subsidiaries in far-flung countries. Civil liability is one of the accountability mechanisms in the proposed directive. It's crucial that it is there, absolutely crucial, because there just has been no remedy to those people affected for their environments destroyed, and I won't mention any names, environments destroyed and livelihoods destroyed. There has been no remedy, it is crucial that civil liability stays. There are issues with how that would be practically possible, because making civil liability available without the supports to make it possible is a problem, so there must be supports available, and there is more detail I can give around that. I would just like also to mention that it is really crucial that the director's side, I'm a director myself. If you want it to happen, make the directors responsible for making it happen and implementing it, and it will happen, so I would just like to make those points. Thank you. I would just like to say that 70% of the killings worldwide are in the context of land, environment and indigenous peoples' rights, and regarding Irish companies without mentioning any names. I was invited to speak to the group of companies that were involved in the Sarah Hahn mine in Columbia, which I did. And I was really, they were so pleased with themselves, but I was quite shocked and very disturbed that they felt that their human rights policy, which they were trumpeting, just involved referring victims or referring human rights defenders who were victims to the local authorities, the local police, the very people who were involved with the companies in the abuse of the community's rights. And there is an Irish company involved with that. Just briefly as well, and not mentioning any names either, we are talking about Irish companies and companies domiciled in Ireland. We have to kind of, I suppose, raise a flag to countries in conflict as well. So there are countries that are in a setting of conflict and the threshold or the need for due diligence is increased in those settings. And where we see where there is a lack of regulation, et cetera, you have companies, again, land grabbing without prior consent from the communities and using that land to benefit themselves. So they are trying to say without saying it. Yes, we see that and we have documented that. There are Irish companies, but as Cuiva said, companies across the world are acting like this, and this is what this law is meant to do. It is meant to change behaviour of companies, but also then when that behaviour does not change, we get some remedy for the communities that are most impacted, but Irish companies are involved. One of the things that concerned me was that it was reported a number of months ago in Politico that Ireland was one of the countries which was delaying progress in terms of this and that it expressed general reservations about the idea of this directive. Are you aware of that being accurate in terms of the sources you would have at council level or whatever? Is that an accurate reflection that Ireland is certainly not pushing ahead with this? Yes, they are closed meetings, so we would use Politico quite a bit to get some information, but we are very much aware that Ireland would be one of the slowest countries with regard to this. There is information out there that we would be maybe not asking questions at some of the meetings about or even just contributing to what those laws should look like. For us, as advocates for this law, it is hard to understand or to work with the Irish Government, and we are here to work with the Irish Government to support them in this. It is hard to understand where they stand on this compared to other countries. One of the biggest watering down proposals is obviously the proposal to double the the level at which this applies, so to increase it to 1,000 employees and to turn over 300 million. I presume such a change would effectively exclude the vast, vast, vast majority of Irish companies. Has the Irish Government taken any position on this that you are aware of? I think the problem is that we are not aware of what the Irish Government's position is, and I think what this requires is a step change. There is an increased urgency around this because there is now this momentum under the Czech Presidency to achieve quite a lot by the end of their term. This now needs to be elevated to a political level. I think the officials at the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment need to be given that political support around what Ireland's position is. Ireland needs to stand firm in terms of its history and its records on protecting, promoting and defending human rights. Coming back to what Deputy Stanton said, I think that this committee could be extremely important in terms of engaging with Minister Cleary and enabling that process maybe to be injected with a bit of fresh energy given the importance of the issues at stake because, as you say, Deputy Murphy, if it is watered down to the degree that we have heard also on the Great Board, it would essentially become meaningless. It would mean that this entire process, and as my colleague Sarah said earlier, the eyes of the world are on this process because the European Union is seen as taking a lead. Countries within the European Union have already set out their policy positions, have introduced legislation. This legislation could potentially impact not just on European companies but also on products and services coming into Europe, so the ramifications are broad in terms of the globe and the way the trading system works. We do need to see the Irish Government stepping up politically to its responsibility. Thanks very much. Thanks Deputy Murphy.