A letter from Fine Gael TD and Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Mary Mitchell O’Connor to the Ceann Comhairle.
It outlines the setting up of a reading room in the Dáil for Oireachtas members to peruse documents pertaining to the EU-US trade deal, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
Sound familiar?
Via Pearse Doherty
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Just sneak a mobile in, take photos, and leak. It’s in the Irish and European public interest.
Someone will be in the room monitoring your reading at all times!
This just sounds completely 1984 or something. What could possibly be in a trade agreement that the general public are not permitted to know about. Vote no in the upcoming referendum until this is 100% publicised.
Well, do it anyway. A dail deputy cannot be restrained or arrested in Leinster House.
Problem is the documents aren’t in Leinster house they are in her department
Ah. They crap. Tho if I were a dail deputy I’d do it anyway, see if they try to restrain you, create a fuss over it.
And there are people working within the EU who are baffled by the Brits desire to Brexit? It’s because of SHADY deals like this TTIP abomination that nobody trusts the EU anymore.
If they weren’t in the EU the UK would have a version of TTIP signed by now. You’re talking about Tories here.
“Without a mandate from either parliament or people, the British trade minister wrote secretly to the European commission insisting that investor-state dispute settlement should remain in the TTIP. ” Source: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/15/european-union-eu-britain-sovereignty
Why is this being so hidden?
Very disturbing that a trade deal is being so secretive.
Are the GATT deals more transparent?
I’m not arguing that this should be a secret, by the way. Just that this is standard procedure because the interests of business supersede the interests of society at the moment.
Guys, total conspiracy theory grasping, gawl.. – we have nothing to fear from legally making ultra rich US and European corporations even more powerful, even more powerful than the Nation State itself, because these private companies have society’s best interests at heart, it’s not a further concentration of wealth and power at all, so there is no need for the little citizen to worry about it…..so, eh, we’ve ‘allowed’ 4 hours in total for anyone (authorised) to read (under supervision) the documents our corporate partners have helped us create that will alter global trade with cast iron legal protection for the neo-liberal ideology, plenty of time….
Vote against it so, if it’s not to be conducted democratically and openly, just say ‘no’ to it.
Wouldn’t this investor-state court, sitting above our own courts, mean we’d have to have a referendum on it?
I believe there is an a large part in TTIP that would require a referendum, but with scant info, I can’t recall which….
Confidential = Someone is being naughty.
Next week in Mary’s reading room:
Rules of the road
How to keep your teaching job and pension, a guide for TDs
Lesson Number 1 don’t drive down steps.
Planet Money actually did an episode on trade negotiation confidentiality. Well worth the listen if you want to understand why negotiators want to keep it confidential
http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/06/26/417851577/episode-635-trade-deal-confidential
+1
That was a really good ep
I don’t mean to pop anyone’s conspiracising balloon, but evil shady secretive deals are rarely put together where all opposition TD’s are able to read about it before its signed. They’re just saying they can’t blab about it before its concluded and published. I know its a relatively novel idea, but maybe diplomacy and negotiation shouldn’t always be played out on social media and by the person shouting the loudest.
ILLUMINATI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!