Mr. Paul Murphy, MEP:

I will explain. I said that I am likely to oppose what appears to be the outline of an agreement. There are question marks over the entry of GM foods into Europe. That is a major issue for big farmers within the US. Other issues arise in terms of food practice processes such as the way that chickens and livestock are washed in chlorine. More fundamentally, it is likely that such a free trade agreement would be used like the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, which was used in the US, Canada and Mexico to undermine pre-existing environmental and labour legislation. At the moment a case is being taken by a US corporation against Canada for imposing restrictions on fracking because it maintains it denies its right as an investor to set up investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms which give investors – big business primarily – special access to justice beyond normal courts. There are likely to be many problems associated with such an agreement and it is likely to be used to try to set workers in the US and Europe against each other in a certain race to the bottom. If members are interested I will give a presentation to the Seanad on the issue in a couple of months. At that stage my approach will be more thorough.

I wish to clarify the point about the trade union movement. I do not know where Deputy Byrne got the idea that I was contemptuous of the trade union movement.