Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

As a member of the Government which ratified CETA originally, I was strongly of the view that CETA was in Ireland's interest and worthy of ratification. Since most of the treaty has already been implemented, the obvious benefits for Ireland as a very open trading-focused economy is already self evident. We live or die by trade. We trade more per capita than virtually any country in the world and we support free trade. However, the investment courts system has been focused upon. I have not only listened to every piece of evidence presented but I have also done my own research as has every member of this committee. There are undoubtedly real and substantial issues that we as a Parliament must address.

The Tánaiste, in his presentation, says that dealing with countries like China, we must have a robust dispute resolution system. Of course we do. Every international agreement has to have a dispute resolution system that both parties agree to, but in a trade deal with Canada and the EU there cannot be any doubt that the domestic court systems, the things that the Tánaiste has mentioned occur every day, are both fair, robust and ones that everybody who is party to the agreement can have full confidence in. Nobody has said for a second that any Irish investor could not have full confidence in a determination made by a Canadian court. No Canadian who presented evidence to us has said they could not have full and complete confidence in a decision of an Irish court. The whole mechanism has often been presented as a tool to encourage investors in developing countries where confidence in their court system is lacking but none of that applies in this particular agreement. There may well be situations were we do agreements where there is an arguable case for an external oversight mechanism for disputes outside the domestic dispute resolution systems that are robust, tried, tested and in accordance with our constitutions but I do not see it in the context of this agreement. That is the point on which I have the greatest difficulty.

The committee has had presentations from professors in Ireland and from the University of Amsterdam, for example, citing the individual issue that the Tánaiste has already been alerted to. Among them is that once this is agreed, there will be a lack of oversight available to our Parliament for any rogue decisions made subsequently. We have no legislative control over it once it is done. Therefore the net question is whether we can have CETA without the investment court system, ICS? The Tánaiste's answer to Deputy Richmond was "No", that it is an integrated package. My experience, and I chaired three European Councils, is that where there is a very serious difficulty to be overcome, the flexibility within the EU institutions is extraordinary. I have sat at Council meetings where intractable positions were resolved by clever legal operations. I have no doubt that these things can be resolved if there is determination for it.

It boils down to my last point that we do not want to go there because of the reputational damage it might do. That is a fair point to make but if there is a component part of an agreement that causes us real concern then we have to set it out and see if we can have the agreement without the ICS. I see no difficulty in arguing that case from an Irish perspective.