Arbitration (Amendment) Bill 2025: Second Stage
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-09
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Barry Ward (FG), Dún Laoghaire

We benefit from this because we benefit from improved regulated international trade in the current global environment, where trade, particularly rules-based trade, is being consistently undermined by the big players like the United States. I join with the condemnation of how America is behaving in terms of international trade. This is actually the antidote to that in many respects. Agreements between countries that create a framework for companies to exist within that regulatory environment is the way we promote a global rules-based trade system. Without that, we are nowhere. Let us not fool ourselves into thinking that rejecting CETA by not passing this legislation will somehow lead to the Irish people being better off. They will not be. The opposite will be the case. Irish people will be very much worse off without international rules-based trade systems. CETA is part of that, and I genuinely believe that Irish people individually and collectively, and the Irish economy, will be much better off as a result of signing that agreement between Canada and the European Union and allowing that framework to exist to promote and enhance trade between Europe and Canada. That is to all our benefits. We should be passing the law because it was correctly identified in the Supreme Court that there were issues with the Act, which this Bill fixes. Let us get on with the job of passing the legislation, signing up to CETA and allowing those benefits to be there for all of the citizens of Ireland.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-09/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:26+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-09