The CETA agreement is dangerous for Ireland and may even be worse than Mercosur. I do not believe it is in the interests of the Irish people. I urge the Government not to ratify it and, if necessary, to put it to the people to decide in a referendum. It undermines our sovereignty and, basically, our right to decide our own destiny. It risks entrenching the corporate power of billionaires over Irish democratic decision-making. I believe we must protect our people, not expose them to lawsuits from multinational billionaires or investors. Ratifying CETA would subject Ireland to investor courts, as my colleagues have outlined, and bypass our judicial system. These special courts are accessible only to large corporations. This will undermine the sovereignty of our own courts and democratic accountability. I believe it would allow companies to sue Ireland for so-called loss of profit, which would place corporate interests over the public good of the Irish people. Ireland is already facing a severe housing crisis that is driving our youth from the land of their birth. Ireland's largest landlord is a Canadian company, IRES REIT, which owns thousands of build-to-rent apartments here. It could use investor courts to challenge rent controls or rent reforms if it believed that such controls would interfere with its profits. This would make it nearly impossible to deliver affordable housing or protect tenants from exploitative practices. Canadian corporations have significant investments in nursing homes and care providers. If a future Government sought to establish publicly run care facilities, these companies could sue Ireland for interfering with their profits. Of course, this undermines our ability to provide essential services in the public interest. Investor courts could penalise Ireland for progressive legislation on workers’ protections or climate policy. They would restrict our ability to meet obligations to citizens in future generations and would lock us into corporate-driven priorities rather than democratic ones. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are attempting to push this legislation through without proper scrutiny despite the far-reaching implications. This should not happen. The Supreme Court has already ruled in the Costello v. the Government of Ireland case that ratifying CETA was unconstitutional so, basically, the Government is trying to break the Irish law, which is crazy. The Government’s publication of the Arbitration (Amendment) Bill 2025 appears to be a workaround to bypass this ruling, which was damning and a terrible indictment of the Irish Government, thereby disregarding both constitutional safeguards and public opposition. We know about investor courts worldwide. They have already awarded over $100 million to corporations. I believe one African country, Togo, has even been sued because of the safeguards it put on tobacco advertising to prevent children from smoking. It lost the case. The tobacco corporations wanted to sue it for protecting the children of the country. This demonstrates the real financial dangers that Ireland would face if this proceeds. I urge the Minister and the Government to oppose this ratification. I do not see any benefit to the Irish public. It undermines Irish sovereignty. I am looking at the statues behind us in the Chamber. I am wondering what the people who died for Irish sovereignty would think when the Government can bring in this law. It would undermine our sovereignty, threaten housing, public services, workers’ rights and climate commitments, and even, as Deputy Ó Snodaigh has just mentioned, limit Irish language rights. I believe we must protect our people, not expose them to lawsuits from multinational corporations. I urge the Government to oppose this.

Sentiment score: 0.01