Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have raised TTIP with the Minister, Deputy Bruton, on many occasions: he has probably got tired listening to me. I have been highlighting my fears about the negative impacts it could have, while he has been concentrating on the jobs and growth that are supposed to spin out of it. To support his claims, the Minister repeatedly cites the now discredited research by the Centre for Economic Policy Research on behalf of the European Commission, and a study by Copenhagen Economics commissioned by the Minister's Department. Both these studies use the same economic modelling framework, the general equilibrium model, which even first year economics students learn is pretty useless for assessing reality, although it is very suitable for neoliberal policy makers. It works on the ridiculous assumption that the market is self-correcting, although we know it is not. The model assumes a fixed labour supply and perfect labour mobility. It assesses regulations which protect workers' health, food quality and the environment as "costs", while the removal of costs is calculated as economic gain. Basically, it is neoliberal, free-marketeering corporate welfare, yet the Government keeps telling us everything is great.

The Minister's Department has promised that regulatory co-operation will not lead to a watering down of protections for the environment, public services, public health or privacy. However, the fact is that since regulatory co-operation between the US and the EU began in earnest in 1998, it has been responsible for steadily lowering our protections and standards. I will give a few examples which have recently been highlighted by Corporate Europe Observatory.

Privacy has been attacked by regulatory co-operation. The European Court of Justice recently struck down the safe harbour agreement, which was concocted under regulatory co-operation. The court argued that the agreement did not safeguard citizens' right to data privacy and God knows, given the revelations by Snowden last year, including the fact that just about every phone call in Ireland can be recorded thanks to tapping into the fibre-optic cable in the sea just off Wales, we have plenty of reasons to be concerned about citizens' data protection.

Another aspect is financial regulation. In 2004, for example, US financial institutions managed to secure an agreement that would allow them to operate in the EU while being monitored by US supervisory authorities. One of the end results was that, when the financial crisis reached its peak in Europe in 2008, it was revealed that neither US nor EU financial authorities had any idea what assets the US insurance giant AIG had on its books. The collapse of this co-operation marked a key drama in the crisis and led to a bailout of $186 billion. These guys can fail as there is always a State there to pick up the tab for them.

On environmental protections, a proposal on electro-scrap chemical waste was watered down in 2002. The precautionary principle was sidelined in the process, as the final version made it impossible for member states to adopt a ban, even when a substance is deemed dangerous. A proposal to move faster on ozone-depleting substances was struck down in 2000. The EU’s 2013 proposal that airlines should pay for emissions was immediately attacked and effectively stopped by the US through the regulatory co-operation mechanism.

What is really scary is that all these attacks on protections happened when regulatory co-operation was based on voluntary rules. The TTIP will change all that and lock us into a disastrous situation in which the unspoken motto of neoliberalism, "profit before people", will become law. There is no doubt that neoliberalism suits fine for the present Government and it suited fine for Fianna Fáil and the Green Party before it. It has been the driving philosophy for some time and gives the people plenty to worry about for the future.

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