Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will return to the matter of the Mercosur deal. Despite recent protestations by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil on the deal, it is worth reminding ourselves that the Government agreed to the negotiating mandate for that deal, which included beef. Throughout the negotiations Sinn Féin called repeatedly for beef to be taken out of the negotiating mandate but no action was taken by the Government on that. We warned consistently that this deal was incompatible with the EU's climate action commitment. In fact, the outworking of some of this deal would be utterly destructive to the planet and to climate.

When the deal was done, we again called on the Government and the Opposition to reject together this deal outright. Fianna Fáil agreed with us at the time, yet the position articulated by the Taoiseach was not reflected in the programme for Government agreed with Fine Gael. The only reference to the deal is an economic and sustainability assessment. Last week, the Taoiseach told us that the Mercosur deal is not reconcilable with the climate objectives of the European Union. As that is absolutely the case, my question is straightforward. Has the Taoiseach or the Government informed the EU Commission of Ireland's opposition to Mercosur?

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