Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Tánaiste for coming before the committee. This all comes down to the investment court system that he dealt with substantially. We had a number of legal minds and other experts before the committee. There was some element in the narrative of people moving away from ISDS. Regarding the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, some of the ISDS-related situations were being negotiated out and the Canada-US-Mexico agreement does not have the same element of that at this point. The French are looking at moving away from the energy charter treaty on the basis of the ISDS provisions within it and the Dutch are being sued currently. The Tánaiste mentioned the fear of being sued on the basis of the legitimate expectation of profits. To a degree, I and others have asked why we would hamper ourselves in this regard and leave ourselves open to a chilling effect.

The Tánaiste stated earlier that Canadian companies currently have the right to go to court in the case of agreements. I contend that we are not a rogue state in terms of our legal system and therefore companies have the option of European or Irish courts. A number of speakers, including members, asked why we would rush into this given the difficulties. A number of major players in Europe are making no moves towards signing up to the ICS.

I am thinking of France and the Netherlands. Why would we sign up to this when elements of the provisions contained within the trade deal are in operation at this point? We are talking about signing up to the ICS, while many trade deals are now being done without that. That does not stop the EU, the UN or whoever coming up with some sort of ICS or dispute resolution mechanism that exists outside of trade deals and could be useful in facilitating business and such. In this case, the fear is the chilling effect and that we will be slower to take action on climate change and all the rest of it. The big example is the fears that have arisen regarding the Energy Charter Treaty.