Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity for this engagement with the Minister. My questions are not directly to do with agriculture. My first question is about freedom of information requests and the discovery made by the Corporate Europe Observatory that 93% of the negotiations at the early stages were between corporate bodies and lobbyists on each side of the negotiations and that the Parliament and the Council were excluded from that early stage. I ask the Minister to comment.

A question related to agriculture is about job displacement. The Copenhagen report does not deal with job displacement in the Irish economy. The Minister previously mentioned job displacement when speaking about Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland. What about job displacement in the agricultural sector and jobs in rural Ireland where it will be very difficult for former workers to retrain and relocate in order to gain employment? What does the Minister intend to do in this regard?

What opportunity could be included in the ISDS for a future Irish Government to regulate wages by means of the Low Pay Commission? As the Minister said, most things, including governmental actions, have been excluded from ISDS, therefore, it must be asked what is the need for it.