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

It is totally disingenuous of the Minister of State to box us all in as the Opposition and to say we are against trade. We are talking about investor courts in this legislation. We are talking about the Arbitration Act and what this Bill will mean for investor courts, with companies being able to sue Ireland for public policy decisions. The Minister of State disagrees with me and I fundamentally disagree with him, but the idea that we are not pro-EU because we have an issue with this, when other EU countries - big players in Europe, including France - have an issue with this and are likely not to ratify the agreement, is wrong. We could renegotiate CETA on different grounds if we wanted to. The European Union has that power. We have seen an increase in relationships in various areas, including security and defence spending, which Canada will be receiving funds for in December. That is a leverage point for us not to have to do this.
Let us get on the record that the Social Democrats and other colleagues in this space are not anti-EU. We are pro-EU. We are critical friends of the EU. We are critical members of the EU because we believe this is bringing us down a dark road, for 20 years, with this zombie clause. It is important we get on the record, in answer to the Minister of State's accusation, that we are not anti-EU because we want to see the EU move in the correct direction. That is not what this Arbitration (Amendment) Bill will do. It is not what the investor courts will do.

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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