Dáil debates
Thursday, 8 December 2016
Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions
Trade Agreements
3:40 pm
Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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8. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation her views regarding CETA's potential negative effects on workers' rights, particularly in view of the notable lack of penalties in the text for countries or companies that violate labour laws, as highlighted by Corporate Europe Observatory; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39116/16]
Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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I have raised this issue previously with the Minister. Where will the safeguards be? As the Minister knows, we do not agree with this agreement. The Government keeps telling us that it likes the agreement, but how will workers' rights be impacted by it?
Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Under the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, the EU and Canada have agreed to a common sustainable development framework establishing a set of rules for labour and the environment. CETA commits the EU and Canada to ensuring that their laws and policies provide and encourage high levels of labour protection. It further commits both parties to continue improving such laws and policies.
CETA reinforces the parties' commitments to international labour standards, including the International Labour Organisation, ILO, core labour standards, other labour rights, such as health and safety at work, and the ratification and implementation of the fundamental ILO conventions. CETA also includes a commitment on the part of all governments to ensure that there is no relaxation of labour rights in efforts to promote trade or attract investment.
The agreement provides for the establishment of civil society advisory groups that may submit opinions or make recommendations on labour-related concerns. CETA will further encourage intergovernmental co-operation on labour-related issues and in international forums.
The labour provisions in CETA are enforceable through the dedicated dispute settlement mechanism in chapter 23 of the agreement, including review by the independent panel of experts, and a high degree of transparency and monitoring.
Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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Most independent observers of CETA will point to excessive liberalisation and deregulation and its weakening of the Government's right to regulate in the public interest. Last month, 450 civil society organisations from the EU and Canada published an open letter urging legislators to vote against CETA in February. They were all in agreement that CETA's investment court system, ICS, granted highly enforceable rights to investors but no corresponding obligations. It does not enable citizens, communities or trade unions to bring a claim when a company violates environmental, labour, health, safety or other rules. It risks being incompatible with EU law, as it establishes a parallel legal system, allowing investors to circumvent existing courts. The ICS is discriminatory because it grants rights to foreign investors that are neither available to citizens nor to domestic investors. This being the case, how can the Minister claim that labour rights will be protected?
Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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Is the Minister aware that the European Parliament Committee on Employment and Social Affairs this morning rejected CETA? When can the Dáil expect to have a debate on CETA?
3:50 pm
Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The Taoiseach has said there will be a Dáil debate but at the moment, as the Deputy is aware, there is provisional application. The process for ratification can take a significant period of time. I am anxious for Irish businesses to be able to take advantage of the significant opportunities CETA provides. It is important to clarify that CETA will not force any change in EU standards. It will not affect our public services, labour rights or environmental standards.
In response to what Deputy Wallace said, as I outlined in the first paragraph of the reply, we have agreed to a sustainable development project framework. CETA commits both the EU and Canada to ensure their laws and policies provide and encourage high levels of labour protections. It is established in our industrial relations machinery that if people feel they have been treated badly in their workplace then they can resort to the national protection that is provided, in this country that means the Labour Court and the Workplace Relations Commission. Breaches of labour law are covered under domestic legislation and we stand by that. We will look after our own domestic legislation on labour.
Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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The Minister said we will be able to look after our own labour issues but in fact a corporation coming to a country in Europe will be allowed to use the investment court system to overrule domestic legislation. On 8 November the Minister said she had received advice to the effect that the investment court system model contained in CETA would effectively be a dispute resolution process which would not give rise to constitutional implications. She is probably aware that the Dublin-based senior counsel, Matthias Kelly, said the proposed investment court would "certainly infringe" upon the Constitution in two areas and possibly three. In his opinion the investment court system would possibly infringe on Article 15.2.1° which vests sole power to make law in the Oireachtas; it would certainly infringe on Article 34.1 which vests the power to dispense justice in the Irish domestic courts; and it would certainly infringe on Article 34.3.2° which makes the High Court and appellate courts above it the sole court in which a law may be questioned. If CETA really were a progressive agreement there would have been a lot more transparency in how it was negotiated.
Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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CETA is a trade agreement and, to be fair, we are talking about Brexit and concerns we have about Irish exporters losing trade to the UK. We want to be able to trade with Canada. We already have a good export trade with Canada but we could improve the situation for Irish exporters.
As Deputy Wallace is aware, the provisional application excludes the investment court. We have a new EU agreement with South Korea, which has led to a 25% increase in Irish exports there. That is real evidence that trade agreements work for Irish exporters and create Irish jobs. When I travel around the country and meet families they are concerned about jobs. I am aware Deputy Wallace has a later question about jobs in Wexford. People want to make sure that we are a good trading nation and that markets are open to us. I do not agree with Deputy Wallace's analysis of CETA.