Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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13. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation his views on the ISDS, or investor-state dispute settlement, as part of the transatlantic trade and investment partnership, through which corporations are able to sue governments for passing laws that threaten their profits and do not abide by the same rules as national court systems; his further views regarding the possible cost to the Exchequer; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28662/15]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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The aim of the EU-US trade negotiations is to reduce barriers to trade in order to promote jobs and investment. Because of our close trading links with the United States, Ireland would be a major beneficiary of such an agreement. The independent study commissioned by my Department carried out by Copenhagen Economics estimates that the benefits in Ireland would be proportionally greater than in the EU as a whole, with a boost to GDP of 1.1%, which equates to about €2.4 billion. This would represent a benefit of more than €1,200 per family. The study points to particular opportunities in Pharmaceuticals, Medical devices, Food (especially dairy), Software and Public Procurement.

The EU Commission's mandate to negotiate with the United States provides that a mechanism for settling investor-state disputes could be included in a negotiated agreement, but that it would only be included if it met EU interests.

Investment protection agreements have not been a feature of Ireland's trade and investment policy because of the strong protection for investors under the Irish Constitution. But all other EU Member States have them, and 9 Member States have them with the US. The EU-US agreement would replace these.

The EU views this as an important opportunity to reform the system and to establish a model of arbitration for settling disputes under international investment agreements that would set new high standards, building on the significant reforms included in the EU-Canada agreement. Some of the key principles of this reform include:

- Full protection for the right of Member States and their Parliaments to regulate in areas of public policy such as social, employment, environment, public health and safety issues;

- Cases could only be taken where there is denial of justice, a fundamental breach of process, targeted discrimination on manifestly wrong grounds, or manifest arbitrariness;

- Provision for the prior selection of the arbitrators by the EU and US sides from amongst persons qualified to be judges, with clear rules governing the arbitration process;

- An appeals mechanism; and

- Rules preventing investors from running cases both in the dispute settlement process and in the Courts.

The EU Commission has conducted widespread consultations to ensure that legitimate public concerns will be fully dealt with in any approach adopted.

These improvements are aimed at addressing the concerns with older investor dispute settlement agreements in order to create a new modern system of investment arbitration.

The inclusion of an acceptable model of ISDS would provide a common approach across the 28 Member States and at federal and state level in the US.