A Green Party senator has said he does not support elements of the trade deal between the EU and Canada.
Vincent Martin, whose sister Catherine is deputy leader of the party, said he had “no worries” about “agreeing to disagree” with Canada and raised concerns about the arbitration element of the deal.
“I have a reservation. I am a fan of arbitration. Arbitration has a vital role to play. I would like to see it play a much more enhanced role in our country. But allowing a foreign corporation to sue a sovereign state, in a situation outside the state’s legal system, is not something I support,” he said.
He is the latest Green Party member to speak out against the trade deal. Martin was appointed to the Seanad in June last year by Micheál Martin at the behest of Eamon Ryan, the leader of the party.
“I’d be in a dereliction of my duty if I was so blinded by the deep mutual respect for our countries not to point out the elephant in the room,” he said.
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“If you could turn back the clock, was it absolutely necessary to disturb the role of the Irish courts?”
Martin said the “selling point” of arbitration was that it was private and confidential.
“I don’t want my country in a private and confidential dispute, I want transparency,” he said. “We don’t like private, unaccountable, confidential dispute hearings involving our country when it involves our country.”
Martin made the remarks at an Oireachtas committee hearing into the Ceta (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) deal between Canada and the European Union.
The remarks will be seen as another headache for Ryan — the government had originally planned to fully sign up to the trade deal before Christmas but this was postponed after Neasa Hourigan and Patrick Costello, two Green TDs, said they would vote against the deal.
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Costello is taking a High Court challenge against the deal. The Irish Examiner reported last month that Martin had congratulated Costello on his decision to take the court case.
Ryan campaigned against the deal when in opposition but now says that his concerns have been dealt with. He wrote to his party in February saying that there was “an expectation that Ceta should be ratified” as part of the programme for government.
The trade deal removes most barriers to imports between the EU and Canada. Although ratified by some EU member states it has faced opposition in Ireland. The Green Party had campaigned against the trade agreement in opposition.
Francis Noel Duffy, a Green Party TD, and husband of Catherine Martin, was also at the committee and said: “The worry is that we hear certain states are being sued for billions by corporations across the globe. And I say this considering we are a small economy where some multinationals have deeper pockets than us.”
The committee heard from the Canadian embassy and the Ireland Canada Business Association on the benefits of the deal. Chris Collenette, the chairman of the ICBA, said any decision to not fully ratify the deal would “not help the relationship” between Ireland and Canada.
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The ICBA claims that in the first year after the provisional implementation of Ceta there was a more than 30 per cent rise in the value of goods traded between the two countries.
Contributions from parliamentarians focused on the investor court system element of the deal. Concerns were raised by Jennifer Whitmore, of the Social Democrats; John Brady, of Sinn Féin, and Alice Mary Higgins, an independent senator.