Arbitration (Amendment) Bill 2025: Second Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-06
============================================================

Chris Andrews (SF), Labour Panel

I first want to put on record how disappointing the Government's approach to this legislation has been so far. It is ramming through this legislation without any real opportunity for scrutiny. The Bill will have far-reaching implications if enacted, undermining the sovereignty of our courts, workers' rights and environmental protections. Yet, pre-legislative scrutiny was denied and the debate in the Dáil was guillotined without allowing for any discussion on many dozens of Opposition amendments. The Government is playing with fire with this legislation and it is extremely frustrating that it is unwilling to listen to any voice not sitting at the Cabinet table. Countless international authorities have highlighted that investor courts have considerable potential implications for the environment, workers' rights and fundamental sovereignty.
UN-appointed experts are saying that the investor state dispute settlement mechanism is beyond reform. It is being removed from the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, and other similar trade agreements because it is recognised that it inherently puts states and national governments at a disadvantage in disputes and unfairly allows corporations to bend states to their will. This Bill will take decisions that would otherwise be undertaken under the jurisdiction of an Irish court and places them with an international investor court over which we have no oversight or control. We have more than enough legislation already on our books for our courts to be empowered to mediate disputes between companies and the State in instances where a company or organisation believes that the State is unreasonably interfering with their ability to operate.
This legislation will create a problem where one does not exist and would further hollow out our democracy and popular sovereignty and take crucial decisions away from the people. There is zero benefit to the public in signing up to these investor courts. All the trade elements of CETA are already in effect. Trade is already happening. This is an attempt to legislate for corporate capture of our policy process. This Bill is not necessary to ensure that trade between Ireland and Canada can continue to grow. It is growing. It is important for our future economic prospects.
The issue with this Bill is not just about Canada, which is clearly a country we want to have a good relationship with and grow our economic partnership with. The issue is about opening the door to a system that would put multinational corporations in a position where they can dictate to the Irish people, which will almost certainly be to the detriment of democracy, our environment and society generally. It absolutely beggars belief that this Government is in such a rush to sign us up to these investor court mechanisms. This should not be allowed in any state that considers itself sovereign and independent.
As well as compromising our sovereignty, fully enacting this legislation and ratifying CETA will likely have a negative effect on public policy and decision-making, hanging the threat of corporate legal action over any attempt to stand up for workers or society at large.
Our courts system gives a more than fair hearing to big business. I would be very surprised if this Government sincerely believes our courts are not fair or fit for purpose. The absolute last thing this country needs is to hand even more power over to the multinationals that already seem to hold almost all the levers of power. Sinn Féin will continue to oppose CETA and I urge Government to give proper consideration to the Opposition amendments that will again be submitted at a later Stage.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-06/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:54+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-06