Dr. Tom Healy:

With regard to the Copenhagen Economics study, at a sectoral level, it is interesting that in assessing the impact of any trade agreement there will be winners and losers. The expectation is that the gains will somehow outweigh the losses. This has been generally true with the huge expansion in world trade over recent decades and our experience with the European Union, originally the European Economic Community. Indeed, there were sectors and areas of the country that initially lost - fisheries would be an example - but somehow the aggregate gains were positive. In some cases, people moved job and in other cases they were retrained or activities were reorientated.

In this case, the Copenhagen study clearly identifies the Irish beef industry as the potential weak link. Notwithstanding the opening up of the US market in recent months, there are huge risks in terms of the imports Ms Patricia King mentioned coming from the US into the EU. It is quite likely that the beef industry would take a hit. On the other hand, dairy, and particularly products such as yogurt and cheese, could very well find an opening of new markets in the US. There are already opportunities in the Asiatic markets and further afield. More generally, Irish agrifood business is well positioned to compete on global markets.

It is important to drill down into these sectoral elements. The solutions are not clear because in the estimations done by Copenhagen Economics it adopted a very unrealistic equilibrium assumption that a job lost in one place is replaced somehow by a job created somewhere else. In that way, the model allowed for labour markets to clear, so that any excess in supply of labour would eventually even out through job creation elsewhere. However, as I said at the outset, there are other ways of measuring this. It is interesting that after all of the analysis and debate, the conclusions of Copenhagen are very modest. They point to a likely or possible net job increase of approximately 10,000. Every job created is welcome, of course, but if it is a case that 10,000 net new jobs are created once-off, that compares with an annual job creation figure at present of approximately 30,000. It is a very good figure and hopefully employment will continue to grow at an annual rate of 2%, but the specific additional impact of TTIP is quite modest.

Also, when one looks at the calculated impacts on investment and real wages, we are looking at increases of between possibly 1% and 2%. Again, it is strongly conditional on the assumptions behind the model. When one looks at the direction in which the European Union is going one must ask: what are the key objectives, what is the vision for Europe economically and socially and how important and useful is something such as TTIP to realising these goals? It appears that areas such as sustainability, economic and social inequality, social cohesion and raising European productivity levels, especially in the weaker economies, are the crucial goals from a policy point of view. The actual impact of TTIP is quite unclear and it raises many questions, collateral issues and possible damage in other areas. There are grounds for proceeding with caution and with sufficient time.

Frankly, we are probably facing a delay of a number of years. I cannot see how this can be wrapped up, and there is no way it can be wrapped up, at the end of this year. All of this must be carefully put together. The challenge is to engage civil society far more in the debate and in looking at all the pluses and minuses. It may be that, ultimately, critical evidence-based analysis must triumph over zeal, be it on the "Yes" side or "No" side of TTIP. We must look at this much more critically.