Arbitration (Amendment) Bill 2025: Committee Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-20 ============================================================ Patricia Stephenson (SD), Labour Panel I thank the Minister of State for his reply. On one particular point, he implied that there would be negative implications for Ireland as a strong member state of Europe and the European Union if we do not ratify this. On Committee Stage at the select committee, the Minister of State said: "If we do not ratify this agreement, the agreement will not happen and it is quite possible the tariff arrangements would be reversed." However, we already know that multiple countries - I read them out before - such as France and Italy are highly unlikely to ratify. There is a sense from the Government that the framing of this Bill is essential to the continuation of the beneficial tariff arrangements set out under CETA but there is no evidence of that. Numerous major countries like France, Italy and Poland have not ratified. There is little evidence that they are going to do so in the near future. Again, it comes back to that question of, "Why now and what is the rush?" I do not think the Minister of State's response necessarily addressed that particular piece. There is an idea that we really need to push back in regard to the arrangements. We welcome the arrangements, without a doubt. I have my Canada-Ireland pin on, my partner is Canadian, I have strong personal links to Canada and I see us as living in a turbulent world where we need to lean into those partners. I was not here in 2016 and 2017 to support or not support but I really want to address this idea that, suddenly, the tariff arrangement is somehow going to collapse should we not ratify. It does not seem to be bound in any evidence. The Minister of State said in the committee: There is no time limit. The EU is not forcing us to do this. This is a choice. My choice and that of the Government and the people of Ireland is to do trade, promote trade and ratify this agreement. That is what the Government chooses to do, supported by the Dáil. That is important to reflect on because the Minister of State said it himself: "The EU is not forcing us to do this." There is no time limit. It is really important and it points, in my opinion and that of so many colleagues on this side of the Chamber, to that piece around recklessness and rushing into something. The Minister of State has given us time today and I understand there will be another Committee Stage debate scheduled as well. Maybe not, but it was my understanding that this was not the last. I appreciate that but given that the implications of this are so serious - in our opinion and that of plenty of experts, as we are not alone in saying this will have future implications - the fact that we did not have pre-legislative scrutiny removed one of the parliamentary roles in getting experts in, as I said before. Lots of us have different backgrounds but I refer to getting the real experts in and having the real opportunity to speak to them. I know the time for that is now past. I appreciate that the Minister of State feels - and he made a remark to the effect - that we should go with the majority opinion and, of course, the majority opinion supported the changes. However, I would say that Mr. Justice Charleton noted that CETA has "unlimited powers of interpretation of a vague set of principles within the treaty". Given the seriousness of that statement by one of our Supreme Court judges, I would be absolutely shocked that we would not give it the due consideration it requires. The Minister of State also said at the committee: I should also say that this agreement has been operated on a provisional basis in relation to the trade provisions for the past ten years or so. I have not heard any complaints from Canadian companies about what the Irish Government is doing to them in this country. We have the provisional application in place. I do not believe there is evidence that the provisional application will suddenly collapse should we choose, like many of the strongest economies in Europe such as France and Italy, not to ratify this agreement. The basis for our ongoing trade relationship with Canada can be renewed in a different discourse and through different mechanisms without this arbitration component. I think the Minister of State used the term "manifestly disproportionate" as regards the treatment of companies and the impact it would have on them. "Manifestly disproportionate" could be this idea that we have induced investment and the investment environment has changed drastically. I really want to make this point because we have done that. We have done the outreach with the Beyond Barriers: Deepening Canada-Ireland Trade and Investment report. I was part of the joint foreign affairs committee. We are going out and inviting them into a certain investment environment with policies that exist today. If we change that, there is an argument that there would be a manifestly disproportionate trade environment to the one in which they originally entered and invested in the country. That is our principal concern, namely, that we are tying ourselves into future issues. On the whole idea of fair and equitable treatment, "manifest arbitrariness" is a particularly vague term in Article 8.10.2(c). It is uncertain how any ICS tribunal could actually interpret it and it could provide a very clear avenue for investors to bring a host state to court. That is the language that Mr. Justice Charleton alluded to in terms of the vagueness in many of the points in the agreement, the vagueness that would be wholly open to interpretation. That interpretation would be by a tribunal that was not required, like our High Court would be, to look at the big picture of all of the legislation and the public interest. Under this particular Bill, the High Court is limited to looking at issues of constitutionality and not public interest. That is a major concern. --- 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