Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Until Deputy Boyd Barrett spoke, there has been an elephant in the room in this debate. There was certainly an elephant in the room in terms of the Minister's speech. In the draft written version circulated - which time prevented him from fully delivering - there was one sentence about the four missing letters, namely, T, T, I and P, that is, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. In the draft written version of his speech, the Minister emphasises the need to maintain momentum in these negotiations. That is the conclusion drawn despite the leaks and what they demonstrate.

The Government now has a real problem on the issue of TTIP. The argument for the world's biggest free trade agreement, which is a race to the bottom in terms of environmental, labour and consumer standards in this country, has been built on two planks. The first is secrecy - a secrecy shrouded in talk about transparency. The second is the notion that it will open up the US market to the Irish agriculture industry. This notion is completely not backed up by any facts or real, objective studies that this is going to be a boon in terms of investment, jobs and, in particular, agriculture. Those two planks are now falling apart under the impact of the leaks which appeared on the Greenpeace website a few days ago.

In terms of what is demonstrated in general, it confirms what we the opponents of TTIP have been saying for years. The director of Greenpeace European Unit stated:

These leaked documents give us an unparalleled look at the scope of US demands to lower or circumvent EU protections for environment and public health as part of TTIP. The EU position is very bad, and the US position is terrible. The prospect of a TTIP compromising within that range is an awful one. The way is being cleared for a race to the bottom in environmental, consumer protection and public health standards.

Every single one of the commitments the European Commission and the Government gave are shown not to be accurate by the leaks. The leaks demonstrate that there is a conscious attempt by the US side to undermine European regulatory standards. The leaks demonstrate that without question. The leaks do not demonstrate any serious effort by the EU side to reject that attempt. The leaks demonstrate that the US side wants the right of US big business to have an input into the creation of new regulations in advance of any democratic input by the European Parliament or national parliaments. The leaks demonstrate, in contrast to what the Minister, Deputy Bruton, said on a number of occasions, that the US is determined to push ahead with an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, that is, private arbitration courts where big business can sue states because they interfere with the so-called right to profit. The leaks demonstrate that the vital precautionary principle is under attack by the US side and that the EU side is doing nothing about it. The leaks demonstrate that the Commission has been consciously misleading the European Parliament and the broader public, if one contrasts its notes of what it will say there and the reality of what is being demonstrated.

It is a good thing that we have the leaks. They assist what we anti-TTIP activists have called the Dracula strategy, which is to draw it out into the open and allowing the public to see what is going on. A crucial part of that is the impact that TTIP will have on agriculture. In contrast to it being a great benefit to Irish agriculture, the leaks and a study by Friends of the Earth Europe, entitled Trading Away EU Farmers, which came out last week demonstrate that it would be a disaster from the point of view of European agriculture and certainly from the point of view of small producers.

A key US offensive aim in the negotiations is to lower regulatory barriers. These regulatory barriers are things we consider basic in terms of consumer rights, consumer protection and the quality of our food. The result would be a win for big US agribusiness and a significant loss for consumers in terms of health and the quality of what they are eating and definitely in terms of small farmers. The US side considers all of what we consider to be basic consumer safety standards to be unjustified barriers to trade. It considers the ban on beef from animals treated with growth hormones as being "not supported by science". On the ban on pork from animals treated with ractopamines - a growth promoter - it is of the opinion that "certain trading partners consider factors other than science". It considers the traceability requirements for foods derived from genetically modified crops as "commercially infeasible". It considers buffer zones to prevent GM contamination as "unnecessary and burdensome". It considers the labelling of GM foods as "[creating] technical barriers to trade by wrongly implying that these foods are unsafe". It considers a ban on poultry meat treated with pathogen reduction chemical washes, that is, chlorine, as "not [to] appear to be based on science". It considers EU limits on pesticide residues allowed in foods as "unreasonably low thresholds". It considers the EU's lower threshold for somatic cell counts in milk as "a quality rather than food safety criterion".

The leaks demonstrate clearly that the precautionary principle is under attack. Numerous models carried out also all demonstrate that the impact on agriculture in the EU, in particular in Ireland given the centrality of beef, would be absolutely devastating. While US agriculture contribution to GDP would increase by 1.9%, studies foresee a decline of up 0.8% for the EU. However, in particular, beef is foremost in the firing line. To quote from the Friends of the Earth report:

All [the] economic modelling studies predict that if EU tariffs are eliminated there will be significant increases in imports of US beef ... Traditional beef grazing farms, which produce high quality meat, are considered particularly vulnerable to imports of cheaper US beef.

I welcome the protest today by the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association against the Mercosur agreement and the TTIP talks. We need to mobilise to stop this deal between the 1% on both sides of the Atlantic. It is against the interests of ordinary people, our environment, labour regulations and so on.

The Minister spoke about some fishing issues. The question of undocumented non-EU migrant fishing crews has come up. After years of denial on the part of the fishing industry and a lack of interest on the part of the outgoing Government, the sterling work of Ken Fleming and the International Transport Federation, with the help of the Guardiannewspaper, exposed the scale and breadth of abuses taking place. The ensuing scandal resulted in the announcement of an atypical work permit regime capped at 500 places with an onus on the owners of fishing vessels to register crews. The figure of 500 emanated from an engagement between the Departments of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Justice and Equality and the representatives of the fishing industry, although a credible report in the Guardiansuggested 1,000 permits could be issued. That was in January. As of last week, my office had been informed that only nine applications for permits have been made and no serious enforcement measures have been put in place ahead of the May deadline for compliance. We will not let this issue go. We will be pursuing any future Minister on this matter.

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