Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Before I address this motion, I welcome to the Visitors Gallery the representatives of a number of NGOs and trade unions, who have engaged constructively with members of the Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation over the past number of months to highlight the devastating impact of free trade agreements on human rights in Colombia. In December last year, the Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation issued a political contribution stating that it was its collective view that this trade agreement does not provide a monitoring mechanism sufficient for the protection of human rights in Colombia and that this trade agreement, in its present form, fails to provide for monitoring of the human rights clause and thus presumes protection of human rights rather than proves their protection. The committee found that the provisional application and potential ratification of this trade agreement could be interpreted as condoning reported ongoing abuses. It endorsed the European Parliament's recommendation that all agreements containing human rights clauses should provide for a permanent human rights committee with a mandate to monitor their implementation.

This agreement has been provisionally applied since August 2013 and yet abuses continue. The Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation holds the view that participation of the EU in this agreement actually involves no incentive to Colombia to rectify the current position and fails to improve the protection of human rights.

In an open letter to members of the Dáil from representatives of more than 50 organisations, representing workers indigenous populations, women and farmers from the province of Putumayo, we were told that instead of producing peace, the EU trade agreement will only serve to increase social conflict and further repressive action. They told us that the Colombian Government, despite its international commitments, has actually militarised their territory and depopulated their province in order to attract international investment. As Justice for Colombia, LASC and Christian Aid have highlighted, the EU's trade agreement provides for the expansion of large-scale extractive industries and agribusinesses. As it stands, 80% of the land in Colombia is in the hands of 14% of landowners. We know from our history that inequality to access to land is directly linked to poverty.

We know from the US FTA that it is the peasant farmers – 34% of Colombia's population – who have lost out, causing widescale social unrest. This has been followed by a violent state clampdown on human rights and trade union activists, with reports of up to 78 community leaders killed by the Colombian security forces in 2013 alone. In the first half of 2014, 30 human rights defenders were killed. This free trade agreement is blood soaked and if we ratify it, we are directly accountable for that. We talk about accountability in this House on a regular basis but if we ratify an agreement that is leading to this level of bloodshed, there is an accountability issue here also.

Colombia's congress of trade unions, in a letter circulated to Deputies this morning, notes that free trade agreements, including the EU's, have contributed to the destruction of agriculture and industry in Colombia.

They have provided greedy corporations with a carte blancheto disregard the living standards of the Colombian people. They are polluting the environment. They are evicting people from their lands, which is leading to the further impoverishment of the population.

The Government has a democratic right to refuse to ratify this agreement but, as usual, it is standing submissively by in the hope that the Commission apparatus might kick into action where human rights abuses inevitably occur. The Minister has said that if breaches do occur, that will give rise to the adoption of the appropriate measures but he knows full well that the measures he refers to are not set out in any agreement and the effect will invalidate his own position.

If it is the Minister's intention to go ahead with this trade agreement, will he at least bring the Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation's political contribution statements before the Dáil as a motion or resolution as provided for under existing Standing Orders? This is the first time in my four years as a Deputy that I have been part of a committee that has issued an all-party position that is directly at odds with that of the Government. It is a serious development where Fine Gael and Labour Deputies-----

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