Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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1. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on his meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada. [31465/17]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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2. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on his meeting with the Canadian Prime Minister. [31485/17]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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3. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on his meeting with the Canadian Prime Minister, Mr Justin Trudeau. [32103/17]

Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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4. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on his engagement with the Prime Minister of Canada, Mr Justin Trudeau on 4 July 2017. [32320/17]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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5. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on his discussions with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau; and if CETA, North Korea and climate change were discussed. [32470/17]

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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6. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on his meetings with the Prime Minister of Canada, Mr Justin Trudeau. [32478/17]

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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There are six questioners in this grouping. Would it be an idea to take all six and then go back to the Taoiseach for a further response?

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Yes.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I call Deputy Boyd Barrett.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The fairly desperate scramble of the political establishment in this country and elsewhere to understand why it is so discredited often focuses on trivia and superficial impressions about what is important and what motivates the electorate. Never more did we see this on show than during the visit of Prime Minister Trudeau, when the focus of much of the commentary was about socks, image and jogging through the park. There was no serious debate about the substantial issues for which the Taoiseach and Prime Minister Trudeau affirmed their support, which are the actual reasons the political establishment is in trouble, namely, the consequence of 25 years of corporate-led globalisation, of which CETA is the latest version. I say seriously to the Taoiseach that he should recognise, even for his own narrow political concerns or, for that matter, those of Deputy Martin, that the reason the establishment is in trouble is the consequence of corporate-led globalisation on ordinary working people and their incomes, public services, infrastructure and the growing inequality in the distribution of wealth, which CETA will further exacerbate. The Taoiseach keeps saying he favours trade. So do I. I favour trade in a way that will benefit the majority of people. All the lauding of CETA, which the Taoiseach has reaffirmed, fails to acknowledge, first, that he plans to apply it without any democratic mandate in this country, as in many other places, which infuriates people, and, second, that he fails to acknowledge the damage it will do to workers' rights, environmental standards, the distribution of wealth, health and safety standards or, according to a recent academic study, the estimated 300,000 jobs that will be lost in Europe as a result of the agreement. None of these things is mentioned.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I thank the Deputy. He is out of time.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The Taoiseach just forges ahead with his support for this deal that will only benefit multinational corporations.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I share Deputy Boyd Barrett's concern about CETA. To take a specific example, the concern is that it does not protect the environmental standards we need desperately to enforce. One can say one thing but do another. The Taoiseach said that many of his discussions with Prime Minister Trudeau concerned the issue of climate change. Whatever the spin may be, I am afraid my understanding is that the Canadian Prime Minister spoke at a recent oil conference in Canada and said no one would find 173 billion barrels of oil and not use it, and this is what the Canadian Government is doing in one of the greatest acts of environmental destruction happening on our planet. The use of that oil would account for approximately 30% of the total global carbon budget that we can afford to release into the atmosphere. Prime Minister Trudeau's Government's co-operation with the US Government in building and reopening the Keystone pipeline and other pipelines calls into question their role in the climate issue. I am interested to know what the discussion about climate change between the Taoiseach and Prime Minister Trudeau was about. What did the Taoiseach propose as our special initiative or special actions in this area? Did he ask the Canadian Prime Minister to explain how he can talk up climate and yet plan to burn 173 billion barrels of shale oil, the dirtiest form of fuel available to us? What leg does Prime Minister Trudeau have to stand on in respect of the climate issue when he is planning to do this and ship the oil across the Keystone pipeline and other pipelines to the rest of the world?

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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As the leader of a party which supports international trade agreements and understands the value and importance of them, particularly for our economy and the maintenance and development of jobs in our economy, I posed a number of questions about CETA to the Taoiseach at the previous Leaders' Questions. Supporting international trade means we have not only a right, but also a responsibility to drill into the individual component parts of each trade agreement. The concerns expressed about the investor court system in particular are a matter I raised last week. It would address a huge number of people's concerns here if decisions in respect of disputes in international trade were fully determined by our domestic courts and would not be subject to any external overview beyond that. I would be interested to hear the Taoiseach's view on this matter. It was because of this and issues related to the environment, for example, as raised by Deputy Ryan, that Seanad Éireann voted against CETA. I would be interested to hear the Government's response to a vote of one of the Houses of the Oireachtas in this regard. Relatedly, when will the Dáil get a chance to debate fully a motion that the Government ratify the agreement?

I was intrigued by the answer the Taoiseach gave regarding Prime Minister Trudeau's offer of assistance from Canada in the next phase of the peace process. What was the Taoiseach's response to that offer? Does he envisage or see the kind of supportive role that was played in the past by the United States being supplemented by Canada, and how would this manifest itself?

Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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As the Taoiseach has acknowledged, one of the big issues of his conversations with the Canadian Prime Minister was CETA, yet there has been no real debate on this issue despite widespread concerns about the implications of the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, especially among farmers, workers and small and medium-sized indigenous companies. There has been no proper debate here in the Dáil, and the Government has chosen to ignore all this and has signed off on the provisional application of the deal at EU level. It has ignored that such a treaty must be agreed by all state parliaments, including the Dáil, and we have yet to vote on this. The only vote in the Oireachtas, as an Teachta Howlin acknowledged, was a Seanad resolution calling on the Government not to ratify the deal. One of the issues at the core of the concerns is the inclusion of the investor court system, which would allow Canadian-based corporations the right to sue governments in the European Union for compensation for the loss of expected future profits in response to government actions that impact on the companies' activities.

We have received legal advice that the inclusion of this system is not compatible with Bunreacht na hÉireann. There is a duty and a responsibility for the Dáil to discuss these issues to ensure that citizens are fully informed of what is included in this trade agreement. Will the Government agree to CETA being debated in the Dáil? When will we have the opportunity to vote on this controversial trade deal? Has the Government sought a legal opinion on the need for a referendum to ratify CETA?

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is a fair point to say that the curious thing about Prime Minister Trudeau's visit is how our Government's primary objective seemed to focus on personal publicity rather than on issues of substance, and while Prime Minister Trudeau did do events linked to Irish economic strengths, it was surprising that the Taoiseach decided to emphasise other aspects.

The CETA agreement is the most important issue of substance at the moment in Irish-Canadian relations. I remind Deputy Adams that we tabled a Private Member's motion here on CETA and enterprise, which was passed, and there was a debate about the issue in the Dáil some weeks ago. Perhaps he was not around or did not realise that this had happened. We did it for a reason. I attended a Dublin Castle event and met representatives of some companies. Among them was a small company from Limerick which employs around 80 people. I asked them if they realised that there was a chorus of negativity around CETA in Dáil Éireann, and they were taken aback.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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They were surprised?

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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These are small companies we are talking about. These are two young men who set up a software company and they could not understand the disconnect between some politicians and the real world out there, where people want the Canadian trade deal in order that they can export their products. To a certain extent, all of the noise made has been negative and anti-CETA, and there has been no corresponding balanced perspective in terms of the value and importance of trade and weighing up that balance in terms of a free trade agreement.

Free trade agreements are notoriously slow to deliver. They move at a snail's pace. Multilateral trade agreements are extraordinarily difficult to get over the line. When they do get over the line, we have a regular chorus of negativity and anti-trade sentiment. People say that it is all wrong and that it is a terrible thing. Exaggerated claims are made to the effect that it is a dastardly attempt to destroy the ordinary people. Many ordinary people depend on jobs in companies that are growing and prospering because of free trade. We have never had any realistic, logical alternative from the left, from People Before Profit or the Anti-Austerity Alliance. We hear that those parties do believe in trade, but of a different kind, whatever that means. We are a small island on the Atlantic. We need an open economy. We made the decision in the late 1950s and early 1960s to open up. We cannot dictate to the entire world and we will not be in a position to dictate to the entire world. Trade is the lifeblood for working people in this country and there must be a degree of honesty about this debate and face up to it. Other parties might talk about establishment politics, whatever that means. We are all elected here. I do not label anybody in terms of establishment or anti-establishment. That is the oldest trick in the political book in terms of rhetoric. The reality is we represent ordinary working people who depend on a salary every week or month because they work in companies that have to sell goods and services, be they beef, milk, software or life sciences; companies that will not expand if they do not have access to new markets.

Did the Taoiseach make any specific commitments about the ratification of CETA and when will this Parliament ratify CETA? I agree with other Deputies on that matter. I have been calling for this for 12 months. Let us have a debate and a ratification process here.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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I know we are all equal but I do not believe I will need the extra two minutes that Deputy Martin took for himself.

We found out more about the Taoiseach's socks during the visit of Prime Minister Trudeau than anything else. We saw soft focus pictures of the Taoiseach jogging in the Phoenix Park, which the media, compliant as they are, chose to focus on. CETA is a very serious issue and as other people, including Members of the Seanad, have said, there is a conflict between CETA and our Constitution. The key issue is the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, now known as the investor court mechanism, which allows companies to sue states for a loss of profits or interfering with their right to make profits. For example, should the State implement regulations around environmental standards, working standards or other regulations? Yesterday a Bill on waste reduction was progressed in the Dáil. Is that something that could hit companies?

I do not know which circles Deputy Martin moves in but there is huge international opposition to this, including from trade unions, so I am surprised that his friends were not aware of that.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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They are not my friends.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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As for the realistic alternative the left would advocate, we are more international than many of the parties of this Dáil and of course we believe in international trade but trade in which workers' rights are protected and the environment is put to the forefront. Some international trade must be challenged. Some trade is absolutely ludicrous, such as bottles of water passing each other on aeroplanes. We want to protect the environment.

Is the Taoiseach going to allow a debate in the Dáil? A Private Member's Bill does not cut it, nor does a motion. Will there be a proper debate in the Dáil in the autumn, and will the Taoiseach allow this to go to a referendum if he does propose that it should be passed?

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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We are eating into the time for the second group of questions. Perhaps we should take an additional eight minutes to allow the Taoiseach to address the questions, if necessary.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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It is historically declining.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Many small companies will go out of business.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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That is because there is not too much detail.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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We move now to Question No. 7 in the name of Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The political establishment, which I will define for Deputy Micheál Martin, comprises the people who have dominated this State since its inception-----

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Sorry, the Taoiseach answers first, then the Deputy can come in.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Let him speak.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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He is practising.