This is the arbitration Bill and that is what we are dealing with. We are dealing with legislation that in my view takes decisions that would be rightly made by Irish courts in relation to Irish business decisions and seconds them to an international court of a kind over which we have no oversight and no power. That is the fundamental issue. I agree that we are in a challenging trade environment. I believe a great deal more needs to be done. Ireland has been too reliant on a small number of markets. It is important that we go far beyond trade deals to ensure there are trade missions to new markets and supports for Irish businesses in terms of language and so on. I also believe that we have been too reliant on various tax incentives rather than ensuring that our infrastructure was adequate. I believe that Ireland has been left uniquely vulnerable in this new trade climate because of the policies of successive Governments. That does not mean that an Irish Government should take the position to rush into any trade deal on offer regardless of the terms and conditions and the implications of it. That would plainly be an absurd position. I hope it is not the position of the Government. If it is, it is certainly inconsistent, given that the only trade deal referenced in the programme for Government is a trade deal that the Government opposes, which is the Mercosur trade deal. The programme commits to opposing the Mercosur trade deal, so it would seem that it is not the position of the Government that we sign up to a trade deal just because the trading environment is challenging. I am concerned at the haste in which this legislation is being rushed through. I cannot understand why Government representatives on the foreign affairs committee sought to waive pre-legislative scrutiny, given the fact that the predecessor of this legislation, or large parts thereof, was effectively struck down in the Supreme Court. There are constitutional issues here that I do not believe are rectified in the key section here, namely, section 3. The Supreme Court found that, ultimately, we need to have a sense of the circumstances in which Irish courts can set aside decisions of the investor courts. That is not at all clear to me. The Bill talks about procedural safeguards. I see nothing that makes it clear. The Irish public needs to understand. The Irish public would be confident that, if a business believes it is deserving of compensation because of a Government decision, it will get a fair hearing in Irish courts. It would also expect that Irish courts should have the power to set aside a decision made by some of these international courts if they believe there is a constitutional issue or if they believe there has been an error in fact or in law. We are not at all clear in what circumstances the Irish High Court can set aside a decision in relation to the investor court. That is a big problem, with the sovereignty of our courts being set aside. It beggars belief that legislation with such weight and implications is being rushed through without any real scrutiny and without having the opportunity to bring in expert witnesses, constitutional witnesses, trade witnesses and so on. It is unacceptable and simply not good enough. I commend the work of my colleague, Ms Lynn Boylan MEP, who organised an event to substitute for the lack of Government pre-legislative scrutiny last Thursday. It was very informative. There is no public interest in signing up to these investor court mechanisms. The trade elements of CETA are in effect; trade is already happening. There is nothing progressive or forward thinking in this. There is only the potential for future liabilities to the State. The question to be asked is, what did the Government not want the public to see when it waived the pre-legislative scrutiny? This is not about trade. It is about protecting our sovereignty. Locking ourselves into these investor courts is a compromise of judicial scrutiny. We are potentially putting ourselves into a situation where private corporations can sue the State if they deem a particular policy a threat to their profits or potentially even their future profits. There have been examples of what can happen in relation to similar courts and I note the Government is trying to pull out of similar court provisions of the Energy Charter Treaty. I will give a few examples. The Antin versus Spain case arose when Spain refused to pay an international court award against it. The aggrieved firm simply went to the UK High Court to have its award enforced and that court ruled Antin was entitled to seize Spanish property located in London to the amount of €120 million. In a subsequent twist that exposed the impotence of the EU when confronted by the enforcement of ISDS awards in foreign jurisdictions, the European Commission found this was actually illegal state aid, but ultimately the declarations of the Commission were set aside. There are other examples like Eiser Infrastructure versus Spain. We are not the only country that has issues with this. There are ten others that share our concerns. We do not need these investor courts. They undermine the sovereignty of our courts and trade is progressing quite well all the same.

Sentiment score: 0.12