Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The first point Senator Quinn makes is good in that the existence of two different standards and two different regulations within Europe and the United States meant that in the United States at least, there was a capture of the threat posed by thalidomide. The problem is there no longer will be those two different standards and regulatory regimes and, therefore, there no longer will be two chances to capture the problem. Volkswagen probably offers an example in this regard, whereby the existence of two standards meant the Americans at least found efforts by Volkswagen to hide the level of emissions from its vehicles and so on. The issue of regulatory balance is important because there undoubtedly must be balance. However, we have some democratic oversight of this regulatory balance at present and were we to cede that to the investor-state dispute settlement, ISDS, mechanism, we no longer would have direct control over it.

The other issue is we have a functioning judicial system in Europe. We have a strong, powerful and useful system which has democratic oversight, which is very important, and is highly respected internationally. I have had conversations with people representing the view of the American Government and they have admitted they think it is a good judicial system. One point they will get across is that were they to give us an opt-out in Europe in this regard, how therefore would they approach an emerging country, which may not have as strong a history with regard to jurisprudence, and demand it from it and so on? Nevertheless, our judicial infrastructure is adequate for companies and individuals to defend and represent themselves.

I have two further points. First, the climate change issue is a massive change and a leaked document indicated that the European Commission had told its negotiators that if climate change issues came up for discussion which militated against the freeing up of trade, they were to put the pressure on the latter, rather than the former, issue. I seek the witnesses' views in this regard. Second, my understanding is this will be a living agreement and were people to sign up to an agreement at this point, such an agreement then would have the ability to evolve in the future. The witnesses also might give their views in this regard.