Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

To respond to some of the Deputies' comments, the Opposition vociferously opposed the trade agreement with Canada. I was asked what we will do about tariffs. What we do about them is we have trade agreements where we reduce the tariffs to nothing or nearly nothing. Every time we do that, there are High Court cases and Opposition motions. We had all those photographs on Twitter, "they all voted for CETA." We all voted for zero tariffs with Canada, the friendliest country in the world, and we are proud of that. The Opposition's stance at the time was grossly misinformed and grossly opposed to the economic interests of this country. Deputies were given absolute clarity that the investor court system was no threat whatsoever to public services in this country.

On the EU-Israel association agreement, review of compliance by Israel with its obligations under that agreement is a priority for Ireland. Every agreement between the European Union and another country must be grounded in international law. That is absolutely clear and the Irish Government has been very clear on it.

In response to Deputy Toole's question on Ukraine, I do not have the full details of the various mechanisms for funding in Ukraine but they have been a mixture of grants, loans, development assistance, practical assistance and advice. I can get the Deputy a summary of the various supports that have come from the European Union and its member states. On healthcare, it was a big feature of the European Council agendas during the Covid period. There are meetings of the Council of Health Ministers regularly enough but health is not a core competence of the European Union. Mostly what we do on healthcare is at national level.

To answer Deputy Lahart on the Presidency, Ireland is going to hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of next year. It is a huge opportunity for us not simply to drive an Irish agenda but to drive the agenda of the European Union in that period. I will certainly be happy to give Opposition and Government TDs a full briefing on that in due course. At the moment it looks like we will have about 250 meetings in Ireland. There will be significant opportunities to show what Ireland can do and how well we can do as a modern, independent country.

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