Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

I am opposed to the taking of Nos. 13 and 14 without debate. I am very opposed to the taking, without debate, of No. 17, which relates to the free trade agreement between the European Union and Korea. I worked on this agreement when I was on the international trade committee of the European Parliament and there are several aspects of it that are utterly reprehensible. It forces widespread deregulation and liberalisation of Korean services with downward pressure on workers' wages and conditions. My second and final major point of objection as to why it should be debated here is that, with breathtaking hypocrisy, the European Union, which prides itself as being a paragon of environmental standards, has insisted in this trade agreement on Korea's stricter environmental law on motor car emissions being waived to allow bigger and more polluting European cars to be sold on the Korean market. It is an expression of an extreme neoliberal and right wing economic agenda. It has major implications for Korean workers in particular but also for some European workers and should be debated in the full Dáil before it is voted on.

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