Arbitration (Amendment) Bill 2025: Report and Final Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-09
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Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland

I literally do not know what the Minister of State is saying in that regard. The European Court of Justice Singapore ruling made it clear trade is the EU competency, that is what the Commission does, and the investment court component is a sovereign and separate decision. That is what was anticipated, that it would be treated separately in 2016. At that time, the Government was really confident that was not going to happen and it was wrong. The Government is very confident that somehow for the first time in history there will be an arbitration tribunal body that will never have an impact on the public interest despite decades of experience.
That is why Trócaire cares about it. That is why I care about it. I come from working with Comhlámh, which led on this when it saw the impact these kinds of agreements had on developing countries. I have worked on it for 15 years.
We had a discussion on this in 2016, during which I spoke to a Government Member who said if it was as bad as it seems we would not be doing it, but we are doing it so it must not be as bad as it seems. That was the end of the argument. It was a circle of an argument. That is kind of where we are now when it comes to the public interest. We are all saying that there is a risk to the public interest, and the evidence of decades shows that. The Minister of State said it is too late. It is not too late. He has provisional trading applying. He has acknowledged that there is no deadline or timeline that requires Ireland to move to full ratification. There is no pressure if there is no date in Europe.
Some countries provisionally ratified the Energy Charter Treaty for 20 years and were then able to exit it immediately, whereas the countries that fully ratified it had a 20-year zombie closed attached when they all tried to leave, having all thought it was going to be fine. The public interest concerns are very real. Simply saying it is new and we think the text will work better does not justify the taking of a risk. It is the choice of the Government to push this matter through at a time when there is no obligation and there are no trade benefits or issues with our national courts. That is risk-taking behaviour in the extreme. As I said, on the public interest point the Minister of State has not addressed the question of the repeal or modification of laws in order to reduce the bills. I would like if that could be addressed.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-06-09/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:01+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-09