Arbitration (Amendment) Bill 2025: Report and Final Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-15
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Thomas Byrne (FF), Meath East

I had nothing to do with the scheduling of the debate on football. I presume that is a matter for the Business Committee. As Deputies are aware, the Costello judgment prevented Ireland's ratification of CETA and other mixed EU trade agreements containing similar investment provisions. The Supreme Court in the Costello case not only identified constitutional concerns that prevented the ratification of CETA but the court then identified a legislative path to allow us to cure the concerns that had been raised. The Government, working with the Attorney General, has considered the findings of the Supreme Court. This legislation is the response, having looked at what the Supreme Court said and the guidance the Supreme Court gave us, which we are now implementing. The Bill before us amends the Arbitration Act, introduces a procedure into Irish law for the enforcement of awards rendered by tribunals established under CETA and similar international agreements, addresses the concerns of the Supreme Court and specifies the applicable grounds on which an award may not be enforced. The concerns the Supreme Court raised could not be met if amendment No. 11 were accepted. Therefore, we cannot accept it. I think it was said from across the floor that we are rewriting our whole approach to that trade and trade agreements can be brought in without scrutiny but that is not the case. There is a whole procedure involving the Commission, member states, the European Parliament and national parliaments, maybe, to do this. Trade agreements do not happen overnight. If the State were ever to rely on the provisions of this Bill, first of all we would have to ratify a trade agreement. Every signatory has to ratify it for the investor courts force to come into force anyway. There then has to be an award against the State in the investor court. If the State does not like it, it then has the remedy under the legislation - let us remember this legislation is extremely short, on a very net point and is not directly related to CETA. The State is then essentially challenging the enforcement of the award in the State. That is what the Bill is about. The enforcement is prevented if enforcing the award would compromise the constitutional order of the State or the autonomy of the legal order of the European Union. That gives the Supreme Court and the High Court the ultimate say on any award an investor court might theoretically make. I stand over my assertion that this would be incredibly rare. The way this would work is the State says no, it will rely on the arbitration Bill to prevent this because it believes enforcing the award would compromise the constitutional order of the State or the autonomy of the legal order of the European Union and then the Irish courts would decide. That is what the Bill does. Setting it out in such simple terms is a challenge to all of the scare stories put forward by the Opposition. Our task is to ratify CETA in a way that passes constitutional muster. Fortunately in this case we have guidance from the Supreme Court. That is all the Bill tries to do.

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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