Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, challenged the T\u00e1naiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney, in the D\u00e1il today over the delays in implementing the National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights.<\/p>\n
Crowe also raised the ESB\u2019s importation of coal from the notorious Cerrejon mine in Colombia with the T\u00e1naiste.<\/p>\n
Deputy Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Government was rightly criticised over the long delays in creating and launching the National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights in the first place. Now it is mising key deadlines set out in its own plan. This is not acceptable.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plan was launched in November 2017 and we are nearly one year on, but the crucial Business and Human Rights Implementation Group still remains to be set up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI, and many others, have serious concerns regarding a lack of human rights due diligence on behalf of State owned or controlled companies.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example we know that 90% of the coal that the ESB imports for its Moneypoint power plant comes from Colombia, and the vast majority of that is from the notorious Cerrejon mine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis mine is infamous for the destruction of the environment, forcible displacement of indigenous people and Afro-Colombians living in the area, and claims of ongoing workers\u2019 rights abuses.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was somewhat surprised that the T\u00e1naiste claimed today in our D\u00e1il debate that he didn\u2019t know anything about the mine and the ESB imports, considering he provided a written reply to my Parliamentary Question on 24 July 2018 clearly stating he knew about the environmental and human rights issues surrounding the mine for some time now.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not acceptable for the T\u00e1naiste to try duck and dive away from this major human rights and environmental issue when challenged on it in the D\u00e1il, and to continue to drag his feet on the implementation of the National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will be writing to the T\u00e1naiste to clarify the discrepancy in his remarks and again asking for his Department to take action regarding the ESB\u2019s importation of coal from this notorious mine.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, challenged the T\u00e1naiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney, in the D\u00e1il today over the delays in implementing the National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights. Crowe also raised the ESB\u2019s importation of coal from the notorious Cerrejon mine in Colombia with the T\u00e1naiste. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,50,406],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colombia","category-human-rights","category-national-action-plan-on-business-and-human-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3609,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3608\/revisions\/3609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}