I have awaited this moment for at least 30 seconds. We cannot take away from the importance of the issue we are discussing. As regards the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, we have no issue with good economic trade agreements and free trade agreements that work for all the people. I do not think many will complain about that fact. On the EU and Canada, I do not think anything is stopping us from accepting what was agreed within that set of negotiations. However, I do not think it will come as a shock that I have a very particular issue with the investment court system. We all know the issues there have been with ISDS. It can have a chilling effect on legislation. Big corporations have been able to say they entered a certain market on the basis of the rules as they existed and that it does not matter if a government changes the rules to try to impact positively on climate change issues, health matters and the rental market, which would obviously be a huge issue for this State. We have seen the likes of Philip Morris in Australia. While I understand Philip Morris eventually lost the case, it had huge resources and was able to put the Australian state through the mincer for an extremely long period of time. We do not know the chilling effect that has had in the context of legislators carrying out legislation and how careful they must be, no matter how beneficial it is. We know the issues that exist regarding the Energy Charter Treaty. Italy withdrew in 2016 and it is still facing claims today because there is a 20-year sunset clause. I am not here to defend the North America Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, or any of the huge number of trade agreements that have been put together recently but, with a huge number of them, at least there was the wit and intelligence to make the sensible move not to have ISDS or investor court system mechanisms because all they are doing is leaving states open to be absolutely hammered. It is all well and good saying that legislators will always work on the basis of carrying out legislation but we have often heard the Government talk about how it is operating on the basis of legal advice from the Attorney General and it cannot necessarily do this, that or the other. I imagine we would be talking about a huge amount of caveated legal advice if we were to allow the investor court system mechanism to leave the State open to being sued. From that point of view, it could change things and cause a chilling effect on future legislation. We would all like to see – I am not sure everyone would like to see it, but a number of us would, particularly those of us in the Opposition - legislation providing for real rent controls until we get to a better set of circumstances. What we do not need or like to think is that the IRES REIT, a Canadian company which owns thousands of build-to-rent apartments, could take the State to the cleaners or even be able to put the State under severe pressure. It is fair to say that trade deals, where we get something out of them, are good. I get that we come together. Canada would also benefit from this. In fairness, the reality with this particular one is that we are all benefiting at this point but the investor court mechanism is the absolute Achilles heel. There is no benefit for this State to legislate for it. We would be a lot safer and better off without doing it, and that is the reason agreement was not even achieved when the EU affairs committee, at the request of the Government, produced a report on CETA and the investor court system. Even Government Members were not willing to support the Government’s position. That just states where the Irish people are in this regard. It goes without saying that we need to be very careful, considering the huge issues - even the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach would agree me on this - we have with the Mercosur deal and other particular agreements.

Sentiment score: 0.25