Dr. Lorna Gold:

The perceived negativity is probably because of the fact that there is such deep concern regarding the scale and the secrecy that has come about as a result of the TTIP negotiations.

With regard to poverty, it is obviously the stated objective of Trócaire to reduce poverty and to create a more just world. However, for us, the biggest threat associated with TTIP is in regard to how we handle climate change. Climate change is now the single biggest threat to addressing poverty. Ban Ki-moon came to Ireland last year and said that if we want to be a leader on hunger, we have to be a leader on climate change. Tackling climate change entails a number of things in terms of mitigating our emissions but it can essentially be boiled down to one thing, which is that we need to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels and the fossil fuel industry. We need to drastically reduce our emissions in a very rapid way and we have signed up to doing that through the Paris agreement reached just before Christmas.

How TTIP interlinks with those stated objectives creates serious dilemmas in terms of policy coherence and policy objectives. We know tackling climate change means regulating and reducing the influence of the fossil fuel industry. However, we know also that the energy chapter in TTIP - Mr. Finnegan can speak on this in more detail - would lock in investments for increasing fossil fuel use for the next 30 years. Therefore, there is a very deep contradiction between TTIP and our stated objectives to reduce poverty and mitigate climate change.

We also know, from Trócaire's long experience, that ending poverty is above all about enhancing a state's capacity and democratic accountability. If TTIP is taken as a gold standard for international trade, then, for all the reasons that have been outlined, it reduces the democratic accountability and the capacity for state action in third countries, or it will do. If countries are locked into a system where, as a result of the ISDS - when it becomes the norm - they are not able to increase their standards or, in a sense, match European standards, how are those who are currently living in poverty meant to work their way out of it? We see TTIP as undermining many of the international standards that are already in place.