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

Does the Minister consider the manner in which the negotiations are being carried out is at all problematic? In particular, there is the fact we need a leak from Greenpeace to see what is in the text and the fact Members of the European Parliament have to go into a closed room with no note-taking facilities in order to see the texts that have been negotiated. That should ring alarm bells for the Minister as it rings them for people all across Europe and in America. Is the Minister concerned that the leaked documents clearly disclose that the so-called precautionary principle which exists in Europe is in the firing line of the US position? Is the Minister at all concerned that it is precisely the notion of regulatory co-operation that will undermine our right, for example, not to have GM foods, not to have hormone in our beef, not to have pathogens in our pork and not to have chlorine washed chicken? These are all things that currently exist in the US and which, if they cannot get them in the front door, they will get them in through the back door of regulatory co-operation.

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