Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Does the Taoiseach regret the forthright support he and the Government have indicated all along for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, TTIP, when leaders in Europe, most notably François Hollande recently, have said that under no circumstances are they willing to sign up to the TTIP deal? It reflects the growing opposition to TTIP across Europe due to concerns that it will lead to, according to some estimates, the loss of as many as 1 million jobs and enormous damage to agriculture, small and medium enterprises, standards of food safety and quality and a whole range of issues in which standards and regulations in Europe would be decimated.

I do not know if the Taoiseach is aware of the internal EU Commission briefing that came out recently in which the representatives of the Commission said the deal would involve substantial gains for US agriculture if tariffs and some non-tariff barriers were fully removed by the EU side and that in the applied scenarios, the US would be a clear winner in trade in agricultural projects in TTIP. There is a growing recognition in Europe that TTIP represents quite a mortal threat to agriculture and a whole range of areas. Can the Taoiseach explain why he is so out of sync with what people across Europe increasingly understand to be the threat represented by TTIP? Why does the Government continue to support it? Did the Taoiseach have any discussions in this regard? The Government seems to be acting as agents for US interests within Europe on TTIP rather than representing the interests of ordinary people in this country as well as workers, small and medium enterprises, the environment and farmers. Why is our position so out of sync with the understanding of the vast majority of people across Europe?

We have strongly disagreed with the Taoiseach for a long time over his willingness to allow US troops to land in Shannon Airport and to allow US overflights as well as the failure to search airplanes for weapons or to verify if overflights are carrying munitions. Our disagreement with the Taoiseach on that is well known. Despite that, the Taoiseach has consistently held to the line of facilitating the US military machine at Shannon Airport. Importantly, that is also in spite of the fact that every opinion poll taken on the issue shows his position is out of sync with what the majority of people in this country think.

Notwithstanding our long-standing differences on this issue, what is the Taoiseach going to do if Donald Trump is elected? I will ask him very directly. If Donald Trump is elected President of the United States, is the Taoiseach going to allow troops under his direction to continue to use Shannon Airport? Did the Taoiseach have any discussions during his meetings in the US with regard to the frightening, dangerous and extremely alarming views of Donald Trump and the possibility that he could take charge of the US military machine? Mr. Trump has talked about wiping people out across the Middle East and massively escalating US military action in that region. Whatever about our previous differences, is the Taoiseach seriously going to tell the House that if Donald Trump was President of the United States, the Taoiseach would carry on with the policy of facilitating the US military at Shannon Airport? If the Taoiseach did that, it would beggar belief because everybody recognises what a dangerous man Donald Trump is.

3 o’clock

Did the Taoiseach have discussions in his meetings in America on NATO or Irish involvement in it? Specifically, can he confirm a report I have heard - I do not know if it is true, but I want to ask the Taoiseach directly whether it is - that in the dying days of the last Government it had agreed to Irish participation in a NATO military exercise but that it was cancelled because of the imminence of the general election-----

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