Eric Byrne (Dublin South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I have a question on TTIP and transparency. Against a background of extensive regulation and monitoring of those regulations, there is a desire to do away with that and have a more standard form. Taking the pharmaceutical industry in Ireland as an example, in order to get a plant up and running, it is necessary to go through various very sophisticated preparatory procedures with the American Food and Drug Administration, FDA. A friend of mine who runs such a plant, which I will not name, tells me there is more dread of inspections by the Irish Medicines Board, IMB, than by the FDA. One assumes, then, that the IMB has a higher level of standards applying to the production of drugs compared with the FDA. Ms O'Reilly referred to the dropping of standards. How do we monitor what is going on in the negotiations, which seem to have led to a situation where instead of the lowering of standards to make it easier to trade, we have instead achieved the implementation of the highest possible standard? Is there a role for Oireachtas committees to examine these matters as part of their EU scrutiny remit? Is there a mechanism whereby one might identify which standard will be adopted in pharmaceutical production, for instance?