Grace O'Sullivan (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I take this opportunity to welcome the Minister back to the Seanad and to raise a number of issues in the areas of foreign affairs and trade with which my group and my party are concerned.

Two weeks ago, the Minister's former Department opened a public consultation on the plans for a new nuclear reactor at the Hinkley Point plant in Somerset in the United Kingdom. I raised the issue of the cross-border impact from such projects at the time and asked that all parties in the Seanad would take an active role in ensuring a strong Irish voice is heard on these issues. Concerns remain about safety, waste and crisis impacts of such facilities, a mere 500 km off our coast. I hope the Minister's Department will continue the long-standing cross-party tradition of tackling successive UK Governments on nuclear policy.

On the topic of neutrality, we saw the publication of a policy document last week from all four of his Fine Gael colleagues in the European Parliament that advocates for a radical alteration to the Irish approach to neutrality and a common European defence. That would see Ireland seek to access EU defence fund moneys and increase our involvement in joint military operations. That would be a significant move away from the position as laid out in the 2015 White Paper on Defence and is part of the erosion of the official position on neutrality I believe the average citizen would still assume is official State policy.

Neutrality matters, not just in the abstract. It is not just a nice idea. It is and has been a long cornerstone of our foreign policy that has allowed us play an outsized and positive role on the international stage, particularly as a member of the United Nations where we were seen as a fair and dispassionate arbiter throughout the Cold War and in its aftermath. Were we to sacrifice that position, we could offer next to nothing to either NATO or the European Union in terms of military capacity yet would be sacrificing much of the serious diplomatic and soft power our world class diplomats have wielded so effectively since the foundation of our State.

Regarding Permanent Structured Cooperation, PESCO, my colleague, Senator Higgins, previously raised several pertinent questions about the role of Ireland with the new organisational agreement. I join her in urging the Minister to lean in further to Ireland's role as a peace-building nation driven by humanitarianism principles in our foreign affairs policy and to strongly defend our proud record of neutrality. I ask the Minister about the implementation plan for PESCO. Will it be published and will it be brought to these Houses and voted on?

Regarding procurement, will that be subject to parliamentary review? Will we be setting aside categories of equipment which Ireland will not procure such as drones? Will the Minister assure us that weapons or equipment we help fund will always be used within a UN mandate? I am interested to hear his views on those questions and on the wider area of neutrality in the context of the statements by his colleagues in the European Parliament.

On the issue of trade, there have been other significant developments, with the European Court of Justice finding that investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms in inter-state trade deals are incompatible with EU law. While this is a welcome development in terms of democracy within the EU, it will not affect international agreements between the EU and other states or organisations. This is particularly significant as we approach the next stage of Brexit negotiations, which will take the form of trade negotiations. What model of trade agreement will be pursued and, crucially, will it include an investor-state arbitration method such as investor-state dispute settlement, ISDS, or an investment court system?

It is clear also that we cannot move forward with full ratification of the comprehensive economic and trade agreement, CETA, with the legality of elements within that awaiting judgment. Can the Minister confirm that the Government will, as appropriate, await the European Court of Justice ruling on the investment court system, ICS, before proceeding further?

The campaigners from the Bantry Bay kelp forest group were outside Leinster House today protesting and appealing to the Government to review the licensing of such a large area for harvesting of kelp in Bantry Bay. In June, the United Nations will convene in New York to discuss a new process for the international management and protection of our seas and oceans, which I expect the Minister will attend. I ask that he might briefly outline the Government's thinking on marine protected areas in an international context, which is especially relevant now in the face of Brexit.