Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

----- as has the Deputy, as she says - and his voice will be missed over the next couple of weeks. We wish him the very best in the treatment he is about to go through and we wish him a full recovery.

There is some distance to travel here yet on the issue of tariffs and trade wars. It is very serious and grave. The initial focus has to be on whether we can get this onto a negotiation pathway. The Deputy correctly said that issues have been raised around non-tariff barriers. The US has a list of what it perceives to be non-tariff barriers in relation to the entry of US goods - chlorinated chicken or whatever - into the European Union. Likewise, the European Union has a list of similar non-tariff barriers that impact on EU goods getting into the US. In some respects, in raising that issue there may be an opportunity in it. Europe is clear that it is willing to negotiate both the tariff issue but also non-tariff issues in respect of complaints that both sides have about the other. The European response has been a measured one designed to endeavour to get negotiations under way. Before we consider any interventions, or whatever, we must give that opportunity to negotiate in the first instance.

The European response in respect of the steel and aluminium tariffs that were imposed by the US has now been published. The earlier list is one that had been there, to be fair, in an earlier era when the older tariffs had been levied. They then had been lifted by both the Biden Administration and the EU. They were automatically published again and lifted. Now there is a new set. It takes out bourbon which is some positive news for spirits and wine and also dairy products. Of course they are still subject to tariffs and we want to get to a position where we can get zero-to-zero tariff arrangements between the European Union and the US and likewise, if we can get a negotiation pathway on non-tariff barriers and any other issues that may be out there and are out there. That is our approach so far. I spent the last week talking to multinational companies, including medtech companies, on how they see it. They broadly endorse the approach. They do not want escalation. Many of them will be impacted by this in the medium to longer term. There is no doubt that investment decisions are being paused but people are not as yet being laid off, or anything like that, in pharma or medtech.

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