Arbitration (Amendment) Bill 2025: Report and Final Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-15
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Duncan Smith (LAB), Dublin Fingal East

It is worth clarifying that we know the difference between an ISDS system and an investor court system. There is not much of a difference. The investor court system really formalises the previous ISDS system, but in effect they do the same thing. We have had this at committee. It was an absolute disgrace that we did not have pre-legislative scrutiny on this. It was remiss of me to not commend Lynn Boylan on the briefing she arranged a couple of months ago, as referred to by Deputy Ó Laoghaire, which Deputy Gibney and others were present at. That should have taken place in a committee room as part of pre-legislative scrutiny of this Bill. The Minister of State keeps saying that we are scaremongering when we can point to examples of where Canadian companies have sued states. We can point to examples within Europe where a German energy company sued the Netherlands for its decarbonisation policy and the impact that was having on its business. We can also point to the fact that there is a threat here because Canadian pensions funds are heavily in the Irish energy system, not just in renewables but in oil and gas in Corrib and Whitegate. The Canadians are heavily invested in the Irish energy sector in fossil fuels. That is not to take into account hypotheticals that could come with regard to our housing system if that changed towards a more public system and Canadian pension funds had investments in private housing, which some of them do.
The Minister of State accuses us of scaremongering even though we have seen the investor court system in action being used by Canadian mining companies and others.
He is saying we are saying black is white but we can throw that right back at him because we have the examples and we are highlighting a valid threat from what is an outdated, outmoded system that is not needed between two modern trading blocs. It is absolutely unbelievable.

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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