That is not my group.
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I will say that I am not an EPP member.
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As a point of clarity I am in Renew Europe, and I am proud to be part of Renew Europe. At the outset I return briefly to first principles and set out the reasons behind this legislation. The Arbitration (Amendment) Bill 2025 seeks to put Ireland, which is a country that greatly benefits from international trade, in a position where it can decide to ratify the range of EU trade and investment agreements we massively benefit from as EU member states. There is a bit of a misconception in what Deputy Ó Laoghaire says because he says there are so many ramifications from this Bill. There are no ramifications from this Bill if we do not ratify the treaties to which it refers. It is important to remember there is a separate ratification process under the Constitution if we are to ratify CETA. This Bill guides us from the Costello case as to how we do so in a constitutional way. However, this Bill does not ratify CETA. That is a separate constitutional procedure in this House. There has been no shortage of debate on the issue and this is a debate, which is not rushed. The EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, CETA, has been scrutinised rigorously and at length in a number of forums, including in the Oireachtas, the courts and at national, international and European level over the past ten years. I think this is my third time to debate the Bill in the Oireachtas and many amendments have been considered and discussed to date. They are all important amendments, but many are on the same issues and are variations on the same theme. Free trade benefits the Irish economy. At a time of global turbulence, it is an important signal for Ireland to seek to ratify these agreements with Canada and Chile, which provide Irish companies and exporters with new opportunities to expand and grow trade overseas. Our trade and investment relationship with the friendly, democratic state of Canada is deep and growing, with over €12 billion in trade in 2024 and direct employment in each other's economies of approximately 20,000 people. Our trade with Chile is more modest but it is growing, and I am convinced that a fully ratified agreement can support more trade and more jobs, most importantly of all. I am conscious of claims that we should not be concerned with ratifying CETA, as has been said at committee, because the parts which provide for more open trading are already provisionally applied. Provisional application is an important mechanism that allows companies, consumers and the State to benefit from the trade agreement at an early stage, but it is not the same as ratification. On the subject of investment dispute resolution, there is again a misconception. We keep hearing in the Dáil and the public media about the ISDS system, the investor-state dispute settlement system. This is not the same as that. This is the investor court system, which has been developed in response to concerns that many people raised about the previous system, which Members keep referring to.
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It is not the same. It is a different system and people keep quoting the previous system, which the Canada trade agreement has actually worked to improve and to make it more transparent. That is important. Irish companies need access to effective international remedies abroad and companies investing in Ireland want similar reassurance. The Irish Government is working to make the economy more competitive and resilient to economic shocks, and the Government’s approach in bringing forward the legislation has been questioned as to why we are doing this. The reality is that this legislation stems from the decision of the Supreme Court in the Costello case. It identified concerns, but the judgment of the Supreme Court identified the legislative path for us. That is what we are doing in bringing forward this Bill. We are following the judgment of the Supreme Court and that is all this legislation is doing. We acknowledge the Costello case. It happened, but the court gave a path for us to be able to ratify CETA in a constructional way. Again, we keep hearing, and Deputy Gibney spoke, about how we will not be able to do the just transition, we cannot regulate anymore, and we cannot do anything now because these companies decide. None of that is true. It absolutely does not prevent us from regulating on public policy, protecting public health, workers, the environment and the rental market. This type of talk about the Canada trade agreement is scaremongering, it really is. It is not believable scaremongering either. It is scarcely believable. These agreements include articles, which affirm that the parties preserve their right to regulate for public policy purposes. This is stitched into the CETA agreement, which again we will have another debate about after we pass this legislation because we will have to have a Dáil resolution about it. The trade agreement also provides that the investment protection provisions shall not be interpreted as a commitment from governments that their legal frameworks will remain unchanged. The Dáil and the European Union can change legislation. The agreements further clarify that the fact a measure may negatively affect an investment or an investor's expectations of profits is not sufficient to say the measure is inconsistent with the agreement. I draw the Deputies' attention to the commitment to preserving the right to regulate as reflected not only in the substantive articles addressing this issue but also in the preambles to the agreement, the general treaty structure and, in the case of CETA - again to address concerns that have been raised - the joint interpretive instrument. The negotiators, the member states of the European Union and Canada, have gone far to address any concerns on this. The joint interpretive instrument says that CETA preserves the ability of the European Union and its member states and Canada to adopt and apply their own laws and regulations that regulate economic activity in the public interest to achieve legitimate public policy objectives such as the protection and promotion of public health, social services, public education, safety, the environment, public morals, social and consumer protection, privacy and data protection and the promotion and protection of cultural diversity. Yet, Deputies from across the floor of the House come in to tell me that black is white and that it is not the case even though that is what the member states have agreed in the joint interpretive instrument. I think that is wrong and that is misinformation and fearmongering that does not stand up to any scrutiny. CETA also clearly defines indirect expropriation. It specifies that non-discriminatory measures to attain legitimate policy goals, for example, regarding labour, health and the environment, are not deemed to be indirect expropriation unless they are manifestly disproportionate. Concerns have been raised that despite all of this, the affirmation of the right to regulate would not be effective in practice. Just to reassure everyone, these agreements include provisions which provide guidance to investment dispute resolution tribunals, including in relation to the application of the right to regulate. For example, Article 8.9(2) of CETA provides that "the mere fact that a Party regulates, including through a modification to its laws, in a manner which negatively affects an investment or interferes with an investor's expectations, including its expectations of profits, does not amount to a breach of an obligation". These agreements include clearly defined investment protection standards, including fair and equitable treatment on expropriation, and provide clear guidance to tribunals on how these should be applied. There is no danger to the State's right to regulate. We have crossed the t's, dotted the i's and done absolutely everything and it is still the case that Deputies opposite do not believe what is written in front of them in the treaties and in the guidance to it.
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I do believe.
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Deputies have raised a number of cases, none involving Ireland. In fact, there was a letter in the newspaper today which criticised me for describing these cases as relatively rare and then it went on to give the reason in the same letter why we have relatively low numbers of cases involving Ireland. We have very few. The cases that have been talked about are not related to CETA. Even the example used of the Canadian company is not under the CETA agreement.
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Exactly. That is my point.
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That is my point. These examples have been given as if they are directly related to the ratification of CETA or the passage of this legislation. The cases the Deputies mentioned have not been decided under the investor court system. They have been decided under the old, long-standing system of investor state dispute settlement, ISDS. I have already outlined the difficulties with that. We felt there was a lack of consistency and predictability, a lack of transparency and the issue of the right to regulate, which I have spoken about at length already, was not there. In the Vermillion case Deputy Gibney spoke about, none of the provisions I am talking about that apply under CETA were there and it was not under an investor court system but under the ISDS system. It was not under CETA. There was no provision allowing for the right to regulate under that particular treaty that the Vermillion case was concerned with in France. Because of those concerns were raised, we have collectively, as a European Union of member states and Canada, decided to change the way we do things, which is to ensure we have a right to regulate and ensure we have an investor court system that works and recognises the role of the sate in regulating and doing social good, but also gives predictability, certainty and transparency to business in order that we can develop important trade ties. I know that many people in the development sector are concerned about trade agreements in general but this is between Canada and the European Union. It is a totally different circumstance.
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I had nothing to do with the scheduling of the debate on football. I presume that is a matter for the Business Committee. As Deputies are aware, the Costello judgment prevented Ireland's ratification of CETA and other mixed EU trade agreements containing similar investment provisions. The Supreme Court in the Costello case not only identified constitutional concerns that prevented the ratification of CETA but the court then identified a legislative path to allow us to cure the concerns that had been raised. The Government, working with the Attorney General, has considered the findings of the Supreme Court. This legislation is the response, having looked at what the Supreme Court said and the guidance the Supreme Court gave us, which we are now implementing. The Bill before us amends the Arbitration Act, introduces a procedure into Irish law for the enforcement of awards rendered by tribunals established under CETA and similar international agreements, addresses the concerns of the Supreme Court and specifies the applicable grounds on which an award may not be enforced. The concerns the Supreme Court raised could not be met if amendment No. 11 were accepted. Therefore, we cannot accept it. I think it was said from across the floor that we are rewriting our whole approach to that trade and trade agreements can be brought in without scrutiny but that is not the case. There is a whole procedure involving the Commission, member states, the European Parliament and national parliaments, maybe, to do this. Trade agreements do not happen overnight. If the State were ever to rely on the provisions of this Bill, first of all we would have to ratify a trade agreement. Every signatory has to ratify it for the investor courts force to come into force anyway. There then has to be an award against the State in the investor court. If the State does not like it, it then has the remedy under the legislation - let us remember this legislation is extremely short, on a very net point and is not directly related to CETA. The State is then essentially challenging the enforcement of the award in the State. That is what the Bill is about. The enforcement is prevented if enforcing the award would compromise the constitutional order of the State or the autonomy of the legal order of the European Union. That gives the Supreme Court and the High Court the ultimate say on any award an investor court might theoretically make. I stand over my assertion that this would be incredibly rare. The way this would work is the State says no, it will rely on the arbitration Bill to prevent this because it believes enforcing the award would compromise the constitutional order of the State or the autonomy of the legal order of the European Union and then the Irish courts would decide. That is what the Bill does. Setting it out in such simple terms is a challenge to all of the scare stories put forward by the Opposition. Our task is to ratify CETA in a way that passes constitutional muster. Fortunately in this case we have guidance from the Supreme Court. That is all the Bill tries to do.
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I will answer.
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To be clear, as one Deputy said, there is an element of repetition. That is what happened on Committee Stage when there was no time limit whatsoever and yet, quite frankly, the debate ran out of steam. This is a Bill that is not even two pages long in total. It is a very short piece of legislation. It is a very net point. We have not seen much debate on the individual amendments tonight to get through them. We have heard the overall points that have been made time and time again. I want to be clear about one thing. We have heard about 6:1 and 4:3 majorities but we do not have an American-style Supreme Court. We have decisions of the Supreme Court and the Government has to go with the decisions of the Supreme Court. I want to be clear, to counteract some more misinformation, that the Supreme Court found the joint committee system in CETA does not breach the Constitution. This is what the Supreme Court found. In fact, the joint committee system is a procedure that is designed to preclude the possibility of the development of jurisprudence beyond the scope anticipated by the parties. This is another protection. The joint committee system is another protection. These investor courts are not for big business only. Small and medium enterprises have very much been a focus of trade agreements in recent times in particular, and there is specific provision for them here. Here we are developing trade relationships with Canada. It is not to do with the Third World and it is not to do with development of poor countries. It involves two large powers trying to engage with each other in a fair way that benefits people. To be clear, the Bill seeks to follow the Supreme Court decision to allow us on another day to ratify the CETA agreement.
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