Arbitration (Amendment) Bill 2025: Report and Final Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-15
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Paul Nicholas Gogarty (IND), Dublin Mid-West

With the malevolent Trump Administration, we need to closer links with Canada through the EU and this legislation is clearly facilitating what is essentially a trade-off with pluses and minuses. The question is not about whether we are losing sovereignty but whether sovereignty is worth giving up in certain situations, and I believe it is. We have agreed to pool sovereignty at EU level in multiple areas. The Supreme Court decision stated CETA created a parallel system of justice but it did not say the ICS was unconstitutional and required a referendum. Instead it suggested amending legislation would be needed to meet the threshold and that is the Bill before us. I said on Second Stage it struck a reasonable balance to meet the threshold so I do not have a problem with it. The old-style ISDS system has been improved in the ICS. The ICS will have open hearings, independent decision-making processes, judges appointed who cannot engage in outside activities and some, admittedly limited, facility for NGOs, civil society, trade unions, etc. It is a trade-off some will hate and others will reluctantly see as necessary. EU companies, as has been mentioned, can sue Canadian companies and Canadian companies can sue EU companies so while Ireland can be sued without recourse to Irish courts, the action cannot be spurious and must show a company has been affected detrimentally in some way because of a breach of the agreement. We might not like it but companies have a right to be compensated for loss of expected earnings and the threat is overemphasised because making such amendments would not in itself be in breach of the agreement. States still have the right to amend policy on environmental matters, consumer protection, public health and labour laws. Threats will happen and there is always the risk of a chilling effect but the EU is starting to take on the IT companies and it is through the EU we shout down these threats.
However, I am concerned about the lack of proper Oireachtas scrutiny on Committee and Report Stages. We had the confidence motion on Tuesday where the anger of ordinary people was expressed in a robust way by Deputies on this side of the House. The Government was accused of being out of touch and not listening to the people. A day later, after having a good Second Stage debate on CETA, we scheduled statements on football. I am a football fan and it was a great debate, which I welcomed, but it could have been deferred for another week. We could have had several more hours of discussion and proper amendments debated. The Government has the numbers anyway and, like I said, there is a trade-off here, but I will not be voting for this as is because it has not been given the proper scrutiny it deserves by this House.

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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