Trade Relations
Dail Éireann — 2025-04-03
============================================================

Peadar Tóibín (AON), Meath West

Obviously, this is bad news for Ireland - there is no doubt about that. While the pharma sector seems to have been given a reprieve for the moment, which is a blessing, the secondary effect of tariffs internationally will be a dampening effect on the world economy. We are a small, open economy and will be very sensitive to that. That will have a significant effect on our tax take - both on corporate taxes and, potentially, a shrinking job market here in the future. The best thing for the European Union to do at the moment is to de-escalate the situation because an escalating tariff war does not suit Ireland.
What real efforts is the Government making to negotiate directly with the US on this? I understand it is a European competency in many ways but we have a leverage in the US that many European countries do not have. What specific efforts are we involved in to try to put pressure on the United States to ensure pharma does not become part of the landing zone?

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-04-03/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:53:41+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-04-03