Arbitration (Amendment) Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-28
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Thomas Byrne (FF), Meath East

Essentially, the Senator is trying to make the case that a CETA tribunal is going to make a decision that fundamentally affects how public policy is made in this country and I am telling her that is not possible. What we are doing is simply amending the Arbitration Act to allow us to ratify CETA. Ultimately, and quite honestly, we do not share the Senator's view. We have considered this very carefully from a legal position. We do not share her view or her concerns about how the Irish courts would interpret the new provisions set out in this legislation. I have explained at length where the thinking came from. It is very simple because it is in black and white. There is no secret process to how we came up with this law. The thinking is black and white in the Supreme Court decision of Mr. Justice Hogan. To account for that, and based on the legal advice we have from the Attorney General, we very carefully drafted the legislation in order that we can ratify CETA in a constitutional manner, which is a policy objective of the Government.

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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