The Government has been “silent” on the watering down of EU legislation aimed at obliging big companies to stamp out human rights abuses and environmental harm “despite many other member states speaking out”, an Oireachtas committee has heard.
Officials from Irish Coalition for Business and Human Rights (ICBHR), Christian Aid Ireland, and business lobby group Ibec were before the Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment on Wednesday to offer expert views on two pieces of European law.
The EU’s corporate sustainability due diligence directive requires large companies to investigate human rights and environmental abuses in their supply chain, while the corporate sustainability reporting directive (CSRD) forces them to report on their impact on the environment and their exposure to climate risk.
However, the European Commission published omnibus legislation in February that delayed the implementation of both laws, significantly watered down the proposals, and effectively reduced the number of businesses within the scope of the laws from about 50,000 to 10,000.
Christian Aid Ireland policy and advocacy officer Ross Fitzpatrick said his group has met with Government officials on “numerous occasions”, but “thus far the Irish Government hasn’t outlined its position on this”.
“The only real position we have managed to elicit is that Ireland is in favour of the simplification agenda but they do not want to see human rights and environmental protection undone,” he said.
“If that is the case though, the time to speak up is now. Not in six months when this directive has been completely gutted at Brussels’ level. What we’ve heard is that the Government has been silent despite many other member states speaking out.”
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The ICBHR policy co-ordinator Evie Clarke said negotiations are ongoing at European Council level, but “may be wrapped up within the next month or so”.
Ibec head of EU policy Neil Willoughby said legislation “should be practical” for companies to comply with and for national authorities to enforce, as well as being “complementary and additive” to existing national laws in EU member states.
“It is clear the original legislation did not meet these criteria,” he said. “The CSRD introduces significant new requirements and related costs for businesses of all sizes by putting sustainability reporting on a par with financial reporting.
“For all companies in scope, it represents a new departure in terms of the level of detailed information that must be reported and the corresponding increase in the number of resources that must be allocated.”
He added that the cost to companies would be “enormous”.
Ibec head of skills and social policy Kara McGann said the laws would be “challenging in terms of time, capital, and people” and that the reporting aspect itself “can on occasion nearly divert from the actual need of addressing the particular risk”.
