Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

This is an expansion. Let me give a concrete case. IRES REIT is owned by a Canadian company. If we sign up to CETA, we may be in a position in a few years where we will say we need rent controls to bring rents down to an affordable level. If the Minister is still in government at that time - hopefully not - will he not say not only that rent controls are unconstitutional but that if we do bring them in, we may be sued for indirect expropriation by the company that owns IRES REIT in the ICS? It will be used precisely for regulatory chill, for the Government to say its hands are tied and that it cannot do something because that would be engaging in indirect expropriation. Indirect expropriation is defined broadly.