Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I bid "Good morning" to the Minister of State. I have a good few questions, if he will bear with me.

I note that the agreement was signed between the EU and Vietnam in 2012. I suppose the first obvious question is, why has it taken so long to become before the Oireachtas? Is the Minister of State confident that there is adequate parliamentary oversight of such important agreements? There are issues that many of us in the House have raised in regard to such agreements.

There are concerns about the EU dumping products on developing countries, undercutting local businesses and harming indigenous growth. I will tell the Minister of State where I am coming from. Last night I was at an Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa, AWEPA, meeting at which there was a report from European Network on Debt and Development, Eurodad, which has put forward a number of recommendations on such matters as taxation. I wonder is there flexibility in implementation to protect vulnerable economic sectors from unfair competition, which was one of the areas that was asking about last night. Some of what they were looking for was fairly reasonable, for example, that there should be conducted a comprehensive impact assessment to analyse the financial impacts on the developing country and ensure that negative impacts are avoided; a fair distribution of taxation rights; and ensured transparency in treaty negotiations, including related position of governments, to allow stakeholders to be involved. What are the views of the Minister of State on this? Is the oversight adequate? We are constantly talking about legislation that is coming from Europe. Is the oversight up to speed in regard to what we are doing in here? All of us involved in Oireachtas committees are dissatisfied with levels of scrutiny.

Article 8, countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, is an essential part of the agreement. I am concerned that two of the nine nuclear power states are European countries - Britain and France - and that Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy deploy and store nuclear weapons as part of NATO. I am worried about these weapons of mass destruction, where we talk about agreements with some countries, yet within the EU itself there is storage of them. When talking about weapons of mass destruction the issue of nuclear weapons should be high on the agenda.

Article 35 mentions human rights. There are serious concerns about workers' rights in Vietnam, especially in the garment sector where, according to reports coming back from the country, forced and child labour can often be used and many work in hazardous conditions. I did not see any specific mention of that. Is there specific mention of it in this agreement? Did it form part of the discussions? Are the EU and Vietnam working together on this issue?

On the language used in the document, the Minister of State states, "the EU and Vietnam will become a party to this mixed competence agreement". I do not understand what that means. All of this trade area is new to me. It will also implement the EU's policy on taxation as well as migration. The Minister of State might expand on that.