Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The question asked by the Deputy at the outset on the breach of competition law is valid, but it is also hypothetical. I imagine that the way it would work is that the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, which is Ireland's competition authority, would conclude that there was a breach of competition law. If that breach of competition law harmed a Canadian company, I do not see how they would sue the State because it would be the State that had found competition law had been breached. If for some reason a State body did not follow its procedures and failed to find that there was a competition breach when there was one, if for example an Irish company was acting in breach of competition law and the competition authority did nothing about that, then the Canadian company could take the case. For this to happen it would have to be an Government agency acting illegally and discriminating against a Canadian company over a European one. I just do not think that would arise. We do not have a tradition in Ireland of discriminating against international investors. I do not believe that anyone would argue that we do.

The ICS could well be a prototype for future trade agreements. It does not exist in some trade agreements and it does in others. I believe it is in the Mexico agreement but not in EU-Mercosur, for example. It is potentially a prototype for future agreements and particularly if we are coming to trade agreements with China in the future or other economic powers. It is something we would favour as a European Union because it creates that alternative to the national courts that maybe would not have the same degree of confidence.

On SME access, part of the reason for this system is to assist SMEs. SMEs do not have big funds or big legal departments. It is hard for them to navigate different national court systems, different provinces in Canada and different member states. Having a single mechanism as an alternative to national courts would be to their advantage if they are being mistreated or discriminated against.