Arbitration (Amendment) Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-28
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Patricia Stephenson (SD), Labour Panel

I welcome this amendment to add really detailed clarity on the way those decisions will be made. We outlined a few of the concerns we have last week to the Minister of State, but it feels like the Bill is attempting to get around the protections afforded by the Constitution through this amendment Bill so that our national courts have a role in enforcing successful investor claims against Ireland in Ireland for specified agreements. However, this feels highly unlikely in the event that an investor who has chosen to take their dispute outside of the jurisdiction of our own national courts to the special extrajudicial tribunals provided for deals in CETA and who has then won an award. Will they then somehow have a radical conversion and suddenly opt to go into an Irish court to enforce that award when they could go to any court in any country within the system or within the jurisdiction and have it enforced with no regard to what is set out in this Bill or under EU law? That is a very significant concern.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-28/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:01+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-28