Sean Kelly MEP has betrayed his responsibility to defend the interests of the Irish people

Liadh Ní Riada MEP has strongly criticised the call of Fine Gael MEP Sean Kelly to have a potential international court for TTIPs Investor-State Dispute Settlement mechanism (ISDS) located in Ireland.

She said that Kelly has completely betrayed his responsibility to defend the interests of the Irish people.

The mechanism of the International State Dispute Settlement court is part of the highly controversial TTIP agreement which has been met with widespread public opposition across the European Union

Speaking from Strasbourg this morning Ní Riada said;

“The unwavering support for the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership demonstrated by Sean Kelly MEP and his Fine Gael colleagues amounts to an extraordinary selling-out of the Irish people on an international scale.

“Mr Kelly’s call for the ISDS court to be located in Ireland is a pathetic attempt to construct a so-called ‘good-news story’ which the Irish people will be asked to digest thereby glossing over the insidious nature of this agreement.

“His claims that locating the ISDS court being in Ireland would generate jobs smacks of the hollow rhetoric used by the establishment parties during the campaigns on the Nice, Lisbon and Austerity treaties. We have all seen the outworking of those empty promises over the last few years.

“The reality is that the ISDS is a shady, behind-closed-doors forum for corporations to sue governments. The mechanism basically undermines the democratic right of parliaments to legislate in the best interests of their people. It turns the legislative focus to the interests of multinational companies and private investors. In 2013 the ISDS clause in the North American Free Trade agreement was used by fracking companies to sue the Canadian Government for loss of profits after it introduced a moratorium on the dangerous extraction process due to public safety and environmental concerns. In Australia ISDS mechanisms were used by tobacco companies to challenge the federal government over its public health measures relating to smoking.

“It is scandalous that an Irish MEP would want such an entity located in our country. It shouldn’t be located anywhere as its existence would be an affront to democracy.

“My fellow Sinn Féin MEP Matt Carthy has been voicing our concerns over TTIP for over a year, and the Sinn Féin delegation in Brussels have been working with other concerned groups to oppose this dangerous and destructive agreement. Sinn Féin will continue to oppose bad deals for the Ireland to to prioritise the needs of our people over the interests of huge multinationals.

“Sean Kelly, in his support for TTIP and the ISDS mechanism, has completely betrayed his responsibility to defend the democratic and economic interests of the Irish people.”