Results 5,381-5,400 of 40,330 for speaker:Leo Varadkar

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (22 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: As is often the case with FTAs, small companies can benefit the most. Where there are trade barriers, expensive customs and tariffs have to be paid and there is significant bureaucracy. A big company with a big legal department can afford to have a customs official, lawyers and so on to overcome some of those trade barriers. That is very hard for a small company. When charges and barriers...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (22 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: It is a feature of the new generation of trade agreements that they do that. Trade agreements used to be short. They would be a couple of pages and would state there were no tariffs, barriers or whatever. Things have changed a lot. Trade agreements have become very detailed and tend to include many provisions, including provisions underpinning the rights of workers, minimum product...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (22 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: It is very clear companies cannot sue for loss of profits so that is not correct. Companies can sue if they are discriminated against and would have to prove in the courts they have been discriminated against. Again, as I mentioned, companies suing governments and government agencies is not a new thing. Companies can do that already, and vice versa, but suing for loss of profits is not...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (22 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I am not sure I would say "terminated" but we are saying, and our legal advice is, provisional application cannot apply forever. People understand that. Let us remember the old days of the driver's licence when someone might have got a provisional driving licence but it did not last forever. Nothing provisional can last forever; that is what provisional means. Our legal advice is that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (22 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: A number of Canadian property companies invest in Ireland and are funding the development of new housing. That will not change as a consequence of CETA but, again, any case that a company would take against Ireland would have to be on the basis that it is being discriminated against, treated unfairly or in a way we would not treat a European or domestic company. If we, for example, bring in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (22 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I thank the Deputy for his contribution. He was there when this was being negotiated; I was not so I imagine his memory is correct. He is certainly correct that there is no bar on nationalisation, municipalisation or privatisation. These are all public policy matters and are not trammelled in any way by the treaty. On the grounds for making a claim, I will again point out companies can...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (22 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I thank the Senator. I will see if my officials can get me some details on the Canada trade flows. The Senator's initial remark is correct. The protections that are in place for business are there for Irish businesses too. The bogeyman being created is this massive, evil Canadian corporation that is going to come to small, little Ireland and take advantage of us. That is a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (22 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: My Department has done a regulatory impact analysis, RIA, on the question of ratifying CETA, which addresses the issue raised by the Deputy. I will arrange for that RIA to be circulated to committee members. In summary, as I set out in my opening statement, since the provisional application of CETA in 2017, the benefits have been plain to see, with goods exports increasing from...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (22 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: Yes, we can. We will circulate that today.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (22 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: There are significant opportunities for import substitution, particularly in the energy area. We spend a fortune importing oil, gas and coal from other jurisdictions when we could produce our own renewable energy, turn it into hydrogen and export it. The big vision we all shared was to turn Ireland from an energy importer into an energy exporter over the next decade. It can be a little...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (22 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: They can. They can still pursue cases through the national courts but the idea behind having an ICS is that it makes it easier and more simple for companies to get justice if they have been discriminated against. We have 27 member states in the EU with different courts systems and different legal systems, as well as courts at subnational level. It is similar in Canada. This simplifies...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (22 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: No, they cannot, unless they are an investor.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (22 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: No. There are a number of grounds that I outlined earlier, including denial of justice in a criminal or civil administrative proceeding. I do not need to read them out but I read them out earlier.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (22 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: They have to establish that they have been treated unfairly and inequitably. I set out in my earlier remarks exactly what those grounds are. I can go through the joint interpretative instrument as well, which explains exactly what that is. These are all forms of discrimination, in my view.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (22 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: No. It could certainly argue it but I do not think it would be successful making that case in any court. There is no right to profit contained in this agreement or treaty. What the Deputy has read into the record clearly sets out the grounds as to where the Government could nationalise something. That provision provides for nationalisation but it states that where nationalisation occurs,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (22 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: That is a pretty extreme remark. People will litigate for all sorts of different reasons. Citizens do and companies do. I do not know the exact number of Canadian companies that are currently involved in litigation but as I pointed out earlier, this is happening before CETA has been ratified so the idea that ratifying CETA somehow allows corporations to litigate makes no sense. It is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (22 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: Are these cases in the EU?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (22 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: These things are happening already.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (22 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I am not aware of the detail of the case but it sounds like another red herring. This is a Canadian company suing the US. This has nothing to do with CETA.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (22 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: These exist already in the EU. The Deputy mentioned a Romanian case.