Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will proceed to speak to the amendments which are in order.

As well as the individual damages that are done through this, we also see a great disjoint between how we treat the consequences for individuals in their lives in respect of compensation and damages, and the consequences for companies. I am speaking to my amendment, which relates to the compensations available for investors.

In the framing of limited liability, in the world of insurance companies, individuals can become just numbers but they are people. One of the most chilling rooms that I entered as the climate talks in Madrid was the room in which the insurance companies were talking to municipalities. Given that we all knew that countries represented across the corridor were not in fact going to do enough to stop climate change in its worst impacts, the insurance companies were talking to the municipalities about how they could take out insurance to try to protect some of their citizens.They were pitching that on the basis of what would be the deductible. Would it be 100,000, 200,000 or 500,000? They are talking about the first 100,000 or 200,000 dead because of climate change. This makes sense because we see entire cities being evacuated around the world because of temperatures in which people cannot live and the human body cannot survive. There are entire cities flooded. These are the consequences and some of them will be seen in Ireland.

Set against the limitation of any liability by the State in that as we try to remove our accountability to citizens, the State is currently in the process of adding brand new liabilities that investors can exploit. We do not want citizens to get compensation but with the proposal to introduce investment courts, we are proposing to add brand new liabilities and expose ourselves to investors making claims. These are liabilities that could bring about compensation of potentially vast amounts, as we have seen billions of dollars being the subject of other investor-state dispute settlement cases around the world. We do not have that.

At the same time as he is trying to remove accountability to the citizens of this State, why is the Minister trying to add new liabilities? Why is that still on the table? My clause in amendment No. 24 is very simple and states, "No remedy or relief by way of compensation shall be available to investors with respect to actions taken to comply with any provision of this Act or any obligation or duty created thereunder.". If we are saying we do not want to be liable to citizens if we fail to do what is in the Bill, it seems extremely reasonable to me that we would add a clause saying that, by the way, we will not be liable for compensation for investors in respect of any of the actions we take to comply with and deliver the provisions of the Bill.

If we do not put in this clause, it is not just about consequences for individuals. We will also skew the wider environmental context. We would create a dynamic whereby not taking action on climate change would not come with a price tag but taking climate and environmental action may come with a hefty price tag in terms of compensation. We are systematically weakening our hands.

We can take an international example of the successful litigation we have seen around the world of climate litigants and citizens who take climate goals more seriously than the State. We are weakening their hands and strengthening the influence on future Governments of investors and corporate interests. When we state "as far as practicable", it is exactly the kind of place where this might kick in.

We can look at Ecuador where a case was taken against Chevron. It was not taken by the Ecuadorian state but rather thousands of farmers in the Amazon and it was ruled they were entitled to compensation. On the other side, the investment courts decided Chevron was entitled to a pile of compensation from the state for having to stop damaging the Amazon. We are looking at this balance so the Government and the Minister must be really clear about where they sit in such a balancing act. The chilling effect of investor courts is not simply directly on a government; this is about chilling the impact and weakening the strength of litigation to press for better policy in the future.

I will vote against the section and I ask the Minister to remove it from the Bill. If he cannot do it, I ask him to ensure he puts the limitation of liability so as to limit what investors can claim for when positive action is taken. That limitation of liability should be the same as how citizens are limited in what they can do when no action is taken at all. Will the Minister please try to address the imbalance being created?