Arbitration (Amendment) Bill 2025: Report and Final Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-15
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Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (SF), Cork South-Central

I want to put on record my disappointment and frustration at the fact that this debate is being guillotined. This has to be taken in the context of the Government and the Government members of the committee having moved to avoid pre-legislative scrutiny of this legislation, which was crucial. We in the committee have all cited international authorities, and will likely do so here tonight again, outlining the manner in which the investor courts have huge potential implications for the environment, for workers' rights and for sovereignty fundamentally. This is about sovereignty, to some extent, and how that is undermined. The fact is that there was no pre-legislative scrutiny and there was no opportunity. There was no scope for the public, public representatives or the media to hear that kind of evidence. I want to pay tribute to my party colleague Lynn Boylan MEP and my colleagues here from across the political spectrum who attended the alternative pre-legislative scrutiny session that was held in the European Commission building. Ultimately, it was a huge failure that the pre-legislative scrutiny did not proceed, and that is compounded by the fact the Government is restricting the debate tonight to a single hour. This is despite the fact we have dozens upon dozens of amendments and that this is very significant legislation that has huge ramifications. We should remind ourselves that this was the subject of constitutional challenge. The Supreme Court recognised there was a clear issue here in ensuring Irish courts had clarity around when they could set aside the decisions of investor courts. That is the fundamental point here.
Similar to what my colleague Deputy Smith has outlined, momentum internationally is moving away from these courts. UN-appointed experts are saying that the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, ISDS, is beyond reform. It is being removed from the North American Free Trade Agreement. Ireland and other countries are looking to resile from the Energy Charter Treaty because it is recognised that it is asymmetrical and it gives huge advantages to courts that states, legislatures and governments simply do not enjoy. I have no problem with - in fact, I think it is right - a decision about a company being upended if it is arbitrary, if it undermines its reasonable and legitimate expectations or if a government is interfering with how the company might conduct itself. However, we have more than ample legislation on our own Statute Book for our courts if there is a decision that is unfair to a company, an individual or a trade union or anything like that. Our courts absolutely have the legislation to ensure they have a remedy, and the Government should be satisfied with that as well.
This Bill is not necessary to ensure that trade between Ireland and Canada can continue to grow. It has grown and that is important. It does not mean, by any stretch of the imagination, that we do not respect the fact that Canada is clearly a democracy. It is clearly a country we want to have good relationships with but this legislation goes much further than simply Canada. This is opening the door to this system potentially being used for trade deals with any number of countries around the world, and trade deals that are not even anticipated. It clearly opens the door for that and undermines our own domestic court system. That is very serious and dangerous. It could potentially lead to the State being significantly liable. We have amendments later on asking the Government to publish annually any costs that might be incurred by the State through this court system into the future. We are rushing the legislation and that is profoundly wrong.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-15/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-15