Mr. David O'Sullivan:

On the question about amending the text, in my reply to Deputy Howlin, I gave it as my view that this would be extremely difficult. The negotiations went on for a long time. They started in 2009 and finished in 2014, which was five years. By the way, there was a lot of backwards and forwards in the finalising of the text and many moments when it had to be revisited. Bologna and the Italians, along with various other member states, had issues about cheeses and so forth.

Getting to the final text in 2016 required two years of further high-level interventions. We may only want to look at one bit but others will want to look at other bits too. Once the Pandora's box is opened by those wanting to look again at the structure and the content of this agreement, unfortunately, everything then unravels with no guarantee that it can be put back together again anytime soon.

On the question of pausing it indefinitely, the way the provisional application works is that it continues to function until a member state definitively announces that it is not in a position to ratify for whatever reason. Within its own constitutional structures, a member state could say it is not going to do it because political circumstances have changed. At that point, the text foresees that the Council is seized of the issue and has to discuss what to do. We have never been in that situation and we do not know what would happen.

Can a decision be postponed forever?

It is true that at this point there are 12 member states, listed in my paper, which have not yet ratified but are in the process of ratifying. I suppose there is no immediate sense of urgency until the last one has ratified. However, that then raises the other point, which is on what basis would Ireland want to pause it. What is the difficulty? Why would Ireland not wish to go forward with this? That comes to a certain issue of credibility in negotiation on the part of the European Union.

I want to be very clear because I am conscious this is delicate. I am not suggesting that national ratification means that the national parliaments have no voice; of course, they do. Their assent is required, but it comes at the end of a very long and complicated process during which the content of the deal has been checked, double-checked, verified and agreed by member states, in the Council and by the Parliament. If our negotiating partners go through all of that and then have to negotiate with 40 national parliaments, where it may be found they can also raise new issues or take a different view, it becomes an issue of credibility for a bloc such as the European Union which thrives on trade. Trade is the lifeblood of our economy. Overall, these deals are very good for us.

The Deputy asked what the wins for Ireland and the EU were. We got considerable market opening in Canada in a couple of areas it was sensitive about. Apart from the market opening, the wins for Ireland were defensive. We very successfully managed to stave off some of the very powerful demands from Canada for very substantial opening of some of our sensitive agricultural markets. In fact, at the time of the conclusion of CETA, there was talk that this would be very damaging to Irish agriculture. If one looks at the agriculture side, the take-up of the tariff rate quotas has been relatively low. Ireland has benefited very well from this trade deal.

I hope that deals with the issues. On the other member states, which was a point mentioned by the Deputy and raised in my op-ed, I am certainly not saying that Ireland does not have the right to tell other member states that it is not happy and it is not going to agree. I question whether we have a credible case not to agree to this particular deal, which is generally very good for Ireland, since Ireland is a promoter of open global markets, free trade and encouraging foreign direct investment. This looks to everyone like a deal very much tailor-made for the kind of policies Ireland pursues. People will raise their eyebrows and ask why Ireland would have a problem with this deal. That is my personal view. This is, generally speaking, a rather positive package from an Irish perspective. Most people would expect and hope that Ireland would feel comfortable giving its agreement to it in the end.