Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

The problem is that the Minister's predictions which he so confidently makes are nonsense in the context of the models used. I do not say this in a derogatory way but because the same rationale was used, for example, in making predictions about other trade agreements which did not materialise.

Greatness was predicted in terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, for example, which did not materialise based on this modelling. Other predictions were revised downwards because they did not live up to the so-called expectations.

As Lorenzo Fioramonti claims in his recent book, How Numbers Rule the World, numbers are used and abused to entrench the power of markets and undermine public debate. That is what we have seen utilised in this so-called debate on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, TTIP. I asked that it would be discussed in this Chamber because three committees would not give it an adequate airing, given its impact here. Is it not just part and parcel of the neoliberal agenda to, as the Minister said, deregulate and liberalise everything, the consequences of which are environmental devastation, the destruction of workers' rights and the welfare state while those at the top with the money can scoop up the profits and line their own pockets?

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