Arbitration (Amendment) Bill 2025: Committee Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-20
============================================================

Patricia Stephenson (SD), Labour Panel

The Minister of State wishes to hand over our policy-making sovereignty to investor courts. We are effectively handing over compensation claims to outside investor courts to decide. That is a terrifying thought. We are handing that power to outside investor courts. They do not need to be based in Ireland at all. We are bypassing our own national courts system and the ECJ. We have a functioning system that can deal with these things. It is already dealing with arbitration claims that might come up in the existing trade and investor system that we have. They already exist. There is no need to introduce this other element. It is crazy stuff. I cannot tell if it is wilful ignorance or naivety.
I travelled to Canada in December last year as part of the foreign affairs committee trade delegation. I also met with the Canadian delegation at PACE in Strasbourg. I support the strong trade relationships the Department and the Government are engaging in. I also support the huge amount of work being done on the Canada-Ireland 180 project, which is to mark the incredibly special relationship that we have with Canada from the 100,000 Irish people who landed on Canadian shores in 1847 during the Famine. I recognise that special relationship. I also recognise the importance of diversifying away from the likes of the US, which is not a reliable partner at the moment for a plethora of reasons of which we are all very aware. I am pro trade with Canada. I believe that Canada is a good country for us to engage with in trade. However, I met with Canadian representatives, notably MPs from Bloc Québécois, who are incredibly concerned about the impacts of arbitration courts on their own systems. As the Minister of State will be aware, given their own experience with the Lone Pine case where US-based energy companies sued Quebec for $250 million in an arbitration claim under NAFTA. That is an unresolved case since 2013 which could see Canada lose more than $100 million. There are major concerns in Canada itself about the impact. It is moving away from arbitration clauses in its own trade agreements with the US. It is doing that now so it kind of beggars belief that we would be seeking to do the opposite.
I fundamentally support opening up a trade relationship with Canada, which I think is a positive move. The Department has done a lot of work around that with the Beyond Barriers report. At the same time, let us get real: Canadian oil companies do not have a great track record when it comes to human rights and their bottom line is profit. While we can say that Canada is a great trading partner, and the Canadian Government is a good trading partner, that does not extend to individual Canadian companies because we do not have any control over them. They will do what they want that is beneficial to their bottom line. We cannot just say that because little old Ireland has a good working relationship with the Canadian Government that it will somehow insulate us from the impact of potential cases being taken by Canadian companies. That is not what big corporations and big multinationals are about. They are not about doing the decent thing.
Big companies and multinationals have previously affected progress in public policy through ISDS schemes, which are effectively the same as the ICS scheme and they will have a regulatory chilling effect on progressive public policy. This is what this arbitration Bill and the full ratification of CETA is going to bring us into.
I note that the Minister of State said on Committee Stage that Canada has moved on from investor protection clauses in other agreements, yet we are pursuing them here. Canada has moved on. He said that himself. He said the reality is that the possibility of any of us coming before an investor protection system in any substantive way is very remote. Canadian companies are outside of the Canadian Government so I take issue with the idea that it is remote that any Canadian company would choose to sue Ireland or take an arbitration case based on their bottom lines being impacted, or that it is outside of the reality that we know. There are lists of active cases of companies suing states because their bottom line is being affected.
The Minister of State also said that we have no instances so far where any company has suggested that if investment protection provisions were in force they would need to avail of them. That is because of course under the current arbitration mechanisms that exist companies can seek resolution with our national courts and through the European courts.
Of course companies are not saying they need to avail of additional mechanisms because we actually have a really well functioning system as it is. It is important to highlight that. The Minister of State went on to say there is not even the remotest possibility under this agreement that companies would seek to use investment protection provisions. Given that we have a whole ream of examples over our recent history of companies taking investment protection provisions against countries, that is not a credible argument.
The Minister of State also said if an Irish government were to say it is going to seize all the houses owned by Canadian pension funds at half their value but would not touch any other properties, those funds might, for example, have a claim in an arbitration court or even in the Irish courts or under Irish law. We know Canadian pension schemes have a huge vested interest in the Irish housing system because many vulture funds bought up a lot of property and are making huge amounts of profit off rents from people in Ireland. The Minister of State gave an extreme example but that is also an admission that if we are changing a policy that affects the bottom line of Canadian companies, they would in fact take the case. A significant volume of student residential accommodation in Ireland is held by institutional investors, including Canadian linked funds. Any future government policy aimed at regulating or acquiring such properties could be exposed to CETA under investor claims if the Bill is enacted. If a future government wanted to take serious action on the housing crisis, for example, this Bill could provide a serious threat to its ability to do so. If the State tries to nationalise or seize a particular investment to achieve policy goals, which any future government or this Government if it continues in government could do, and there happens to be a large Canadian investment in that area, what is stopping those investors from going to the ICS system and claiming anti-Canadian discrimination, particularly given the fact that we have provided inducements to invest, as the IDA does as part of its business outreach to bring different companies into Ireland? In regard to that piece around inducement to invest, a company may be invited to Ireland under particular investment structures, and is advised that this is the current regulatory framework for the business to come in, so in terms of housing, this is the current framework for this company to come in and make money in Ireland. If we have done outreach and invited companies, they could argue to an investor court that the regulatory environment changed; they were promised one thing and given this inducement to invest on one ground but it changed. That would actually be quite strong grounds for a case in the arbitration court. That could apply on any public policy issue. Going back to that idea that these elements exist, we have the ability, as it stands, for the courts to deal with arbitration cases.
One important case that we should mention is Vermilion, a Canadian oil and gas company that in 2017 produced 75% of France's oil. It lobbied alongside several companies and against progressive French policy which sought to end fossil fuel extraction. We are living in a climate catastrophe so we want to move to renewables. I refer to this idea that a company that produces 75% of a country's oil - in this case, Vermilion and France - could then sue. The mere threat of awards was enough to make the French Government backtrack on its policy. The threat of Vermilion Energy going after the French Government because a potential policy was going to undermine its ability to make money was enough to make the French Government backtrack and instead allow all current exploration and exploitation projects by all companies to continue for another 20 years. That is chilling.
To echo one of the points that Senator McDowell made about the zombie clause and the idea that if Ireland implements this and fully ratifies CETA, we will only be able to extract ourselves by leaving the EU, that is tying the hands of any future governments to make any decisions on this issue. That is what this is doing. Going back to the question of why the rush, I point to France, Italy and Belgium. It is highly unlikely in the case of Hungary although there is a new government there. Under the Orban regime Hungary was unlikely to ratify. Slovenia, Bulgaria and Cyprus are perhaps a little less likely. To what end are we rushing into this? Pre-legislative scrutiny was waived. I voted against the waiving of pre-legislative scrutiny at the foreign affairs committee. While we have many legislators in this House and in the Dáil with very different backgrounds, we have not heard sufficiently from experts in this field, beyond the ruling of the Supreme Court judges on which there are questions. We are rushing into something that will tie the hands of future governments for future generations for a minimum of 20 years, should we seek to leave it. Should we seek to leave it, it can only be as a collective in the EU. This is at a time when we are removing ourselves from the energy charter treaty, ECT, and Canada itself is removing arbitration clauses from its future trade agreements.
Under the Bill as it is currently written, we will never have another opportunity to discuss this. We will not have another opportunity to discuss arbitration clauses for future trade agreements because any given Minister at any given time will be able to include them in any future trade agreements. This Bill includes CETA and the Chile trade agreement. Actually, when it comes to ratification of CETA, it is only done in the Dáil. It will not be coming here. This is our last opportunity to have this discussion unless we put in an amendment which allows or enforces the Minister of the day, any future Minister, to come back to the Oireachtas and the committees of the Oireachtas. We should not be diminishing our role as parliamentarians to scrutinise major policy decisions in the future. I will have amendments on this down the line if they have not been ruled out of order. I cannot remember whether they have been ruled out of order. We need to have measures in place to ensure that we, as parliamentarians, or future parliamentarians, will have the opportunity to review the implications of this decision in future trade agreements.

---

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/2026-05-20/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:58+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-20