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

Again, I have to go back to the joint interpretative instrument on the environment, which states:
CETA commits the European Union and its Member States and Canada to provide for and encourage high levels of environmental protection, as well as to strive to continue to improve such laws and policies and their underlying levels of protection.
CETA explicitly recognises the right of Canada and of the European Union and its Member States, to set their own environmental priorities, to establish their own levels of environmental protection and to adopt or modify their relevant laws and policies accordingly, mindful of their international obligations, including those set by multilateral environmental agreements.
The instrument does not just reference one agreement, as the Senator has done. It includes the full range because, of course, things will change over time. I cannot go further than that on this particular point. It is self-evident if one reads the text of the joint interpretative agreement and the other texts connected to this agreement.
There were criticisms of the old system. I keep saying that the criticisms of the old system have been recognised ye, each time I come into the Seanad, I am given a long list of cases that were decided under the old system. Speaking about the old system, one of the negotiators of CETA said that the new system is a very different system that took concerns about the old system, such as those the Senators have raised, to heart. The negotiators heard about those decisions and concerns and did their best to alleviate them by coming up with a reformed investor court system. Of course, the Opposition gives that no credence because it does not suit the anti-trade agreement agenda that some people in the Opposition have, although I am not accusing everyone of that.
On Senator Davitt's point, it is important to talk about the benefits of this agreement. CETA has contributed to a significant increase in bilateral trade in goods and services with Canada since its provisional application in 2017. It has directly created jobs in each and every constituency. Every Senator will know people working in industries and businesses that benefit from CETA. Trade has increased from €3.2 billion in 2016 to more than €12 billion in 2024. The reason I say that Senators will know such people is that Canadian companies employ 22,000 people in Ireland. There are also huge numbers of Irish people working in Irish companies that export to Canada.
That is the simple reality of this. It is why we are here. This is about protecting jobs. I have noticed - and this is a general point about politics in Ireland - that we never hear from the Opposition about how to generate more than €100 billion per year for public spending. We never hear a debate about how to do it better or how to generate more income. From my point of view, as Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs, and that of the Government, it is all about opening the country to further trade, developing Irish companies that can trade abroad and create jobs and investment here and continuing to attract foreign direct investment, FDI. That model, which is criticised by many, has been spectacularly successful in generating jobs and investment in the country. Everyone who comes in here to nitpick around this is completely ignoring the bigger picture. Everyone who comes in here and quotes old cases that are not relevant is doing a disservice to all the people in their constituencies who are employed by companies that completely depend on trade. The minute we forget about the importance of trade agreements, the minute we challenge-----

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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