Michael Conaghan (Dublin South Central, Labour)
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914. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will request the European Commission to provide an explicit exclusion of education from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, noting that the EU Foreign Affairs Council of Ministers has already excluded the audiovisual sector from TTIP, based on the public interest goal of preserving and promoting cultural and linguistic diversity within the EU; and her views that the same reasoning would justify an exemption for education from the TTIP. [41868/14]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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The opening up of negotiations between the EU and the US on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) was a very important milestone for Ireland, not only because the EU's decision to open talks was achieved under Ireland's Presidency of the EU last year, but more importantly because it will shape many aspects of Ireland's future relationship with the United States.

The negotiations with the United States are the most ambitious and broad based that the EU has ever undertaken. The breadth of the negotiations reflects the extensive benefits that could be won from any final agreement. However, when the EU Council agreed the negotiating directives to the Commission for these talks under last year's Irish presidency of the EU, it was unanimously agreed by all Ministers, and accepted by the Commission, that any agreement with the United States would not herald any lowering of standards that our citizens rightly value. This is an important consideration in how the EU conducts its negotiations.

In relation to education, there is no proposal from the EU to further open up education services in the TTIP. Under Free Trade Agreements negotiated so far by the EU, member states are free to organise their educational policies, structures and standards as best suits their circumstances.