Alice-Mary Higgins
National University of Ireland · Independent · Ireland
“We are signing up to be customers of liquefied natural gas - potentially fracked gas, potentially coming from a country that is busily fighting against climate action and trying to fast-track our route to destruction. We will be doing that every year in the budget and every day in the terminal.”
“We are not getting solid measures on those safeguards. The other safeguards we have, which are our planning laws and climate laws, are being either fast-tracked or suspended. We are suspending the existing safeguards and are not putting hard safeguards into this Bill, and we are being asked to go on faith.”
“Nonetheless, I have some practical questions. We need a little more on what the emergency is because it is not sufficient to say we will deal with it then. The emergency is the ground on which the Minister of State is asking for the normal planning process and the climate Act to be suspended. We need to know what the emergency is.”
“It should happen only after all relevant market-based measures have been implemented. Those market measures should include the demand-reduction strategies that are eligible under N-1, including demand reduction by large energy users, and should have been implemented, exhausted and proven insufficient.”
“Sure there is detail in it but the key issue is that what he is asking of the Oireachtas, which is to agree to it being built, is on the argument of there being an emergency. It should be very clear what the emergency is. I mentioned previously that the committee said our N-1 obligations could be met through demand management.”
“It comes from real places with real communities that are immediately and terribly impacted by fracking, as well as having an impact on the atmosphere that surrounds our beautiful planet, which we are destroying. As the Minister of State said, it impacts not just on business but on the liveability of large portions of this planet.”
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“We take our definition from the definition that I know the Government has looked at in its engagement with the UN process, which is the International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC, definition, which looks at lethal autonomous weapons or any weapon with autonomy in its critical function, or any weapons system that can select and attack targets without human intervention. These are commonly known as killer robots. The killer robot campaign makes a number of very important points, which I will not have time to elaborate on in detail but I want to touch on. One of the key issues here is digital dehumanisation. Technology should be empowering all members of society rather than reducing us. Used against people, it simply profile-pattern matches and processes human beings as data.”
“There is a gap in the governance at a time when the escalation and the funding are immense. I want to touch on a couple of the key components in this legislation. Our Bill seeks to restrict the use, stockpiling, production, transfer and development of and investment in lethal autonomous weapon systems. It would effectively ban the Irish Government and indeed the Defence Forces from utilising this classification of weapon. It would curtail direct or indirect investment of public funds into this area and indeed the transit of weapons through this territory.”
“The EU AI Act, which maybe gets spoken about in relation to other areas of AI regulation, with all of the concerns which come with the omnibus and others, explicitly does not deal with the area of military or defence or even dual-use, which is something Ireland needs to have a strong moral eye to, given the very large number of dual-use goods, for example, that we export to Israel and elsewhere. Those are explicitly excluded from the EU regulatory context. The national context has not taken real action. Internationally, we know there is a process that has taken far too long to come to the point of maybe looking to an adaptation of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, even though we know the General Assembly of the UN has also said it will look otherwise for treaty action or for action on this.”
“They have said that they would invest 20 seconds for every target at this stage and do dozens of them every day. They have spoken of how they had zero added value as humans, apart from as a stamp of approval. I know my colleague will speak of other systems, including Hello Daddy, where by their nature, the targets effectively are children. These weapons are being used and trialled, and there is a giddiness in their adoption. This is happening with more money than we can imagine coming from two directions, yet there is a massive lacuna in terms of legislation, accountability and structures.”
“As a sense of how these are used, I could use quotes about Project Maven, which was initially developed by the Pentagon and is now available in all contexts. It can identify approximately 1,000 targeting decisions in an hour. It can choose and dismiss targets in the battlefield. One director, the vice admiral, has said that America wants to use it for everything, not just targeting. I know my colleague will speak more on Israel, where we have seen the Gospel - a machine-learning algorithm - used to produce potential targets so fast that Israeli officers described it as a "mass-assassination factory". A similar system, Lavender, at one point identified 37,000 potential targets. When those in Israeli intelligence have spoken about how it felt about to use these weapons, they have downplayed the role of human oversight.”
“As they are coming about, they are being experimented with. They are being used in Iraq and Iran, and on the population of Gaza. They are being trialled and tested on the most vulnerable people in the world. This is being done in the context of more money being pushed towards defence than we have seen in almost 60 years, and more money being poured into AI. The two drivers - the AI industry and the defence industry - are having vast amounts of money thrown at them in the kind of "move fast and break things" epic we have seen in tech in the past. In this instance, what is getting broken is humanity and people, and indeed our international humanitarian law and those ideas that there are standards even within war.”
“Pope Leo, in his encyclical, spoke about the horror of entrusting an algorithm with the power to select who is worthy or not without bearing responsibility for that judgment, and about the damage that does to human possibilities and political responsibility. He highlighted that artificial intelligence does not remove the intrinsic inhumanity of the conflict. In fact, it brings about conflict more quickly, renders it more impersonal, lowers the threshold for resorting to violence, transforms defence into threat prediction and reduces victims to data. The legislation I am proposing now comes in a context. I will dive a little bit more into autonomous weapons in a moment. Not only are we seeing horrific weapons being used with consequence around the world, but we are seeing a turbo-powered development of such weapons.”
“That is why when people talk about Ireland stepping up and playing our role, I always think that Ireland plays its role, and the role it has played has been in peace and disarmament. That is our outsized role, and it is the greatest contribution a country makes in terms of reduction of casualties and of death. We are now at a moment when not only are we seeing a very worrying rollback, with countries leaving the land mine and cluster munition treaties and returning to the use of these unconscionable weapons, but we are also seeing horrendous new weapons which are dealing death at a scale and with mechanisms which were unimaginable in the past. Lethal autonomous weapons have been described by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, as morally repugnant.”
“I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I also thank the experts who have worked with me on this legislation, and Stephen Reid from my own office for his work on its development. One of the moments when I was proudest of Ireland was being there when Ireland hosted the negotiations which led to a global ban on cluster munitions. Cluster munitions were land mines from the sky, weapons which by their very nature hurt unknown targets at unknown times in the future, were unpredictable in their effect, and were outside the realms of international humanitarian law because their consequences were unknown. What we did know was that their consequences were very often at the expense of civilians and children. Ireland led the discussions that led to the global ban on these horrendous weapons.”
“The concern is that those tend to be internal processes and perhaps more opaque for the public, and it is the public who may be negatively impacted by the improper actions. This is part of the context. It is not solely around performance and managing a team. This is probably where the concern is coming from and why we look for-----”
“I wish to speak very briefly to the section. The Minister did not accept the proposed introductions of offences in terms of the amendments but will he clarify what consequences he sees playing out in relation to the inappropriate uses of these technologies and what examples have been given in relation to that?”
“6 in terms of suspected possession of stolen goods, controlled substances and a number of other aspects such as computer programmes and any other articles. I am apparently not empowered to move these amendments on behalf of Senators Ruane and Black so I am going to pass over to Senator Black to formally move them, but what Senator Ruane is pointing to is the concern that stop and search becomes disproportionately used and targeted towards certain areas for certain lower level offences and becomes a tool of potential misuse, abuse or offence rather than a thing that is used rarely and carefully in situations of very significant danger or threat.”
“While it is welcome that a range of existing Garda powers will be codified into a single piece of legislation in this Bill, there is concern about the absence of proper guardrails and safeguards around how stop and search will be used, creating the potential for overuse, misuse, unequal use and, potentially, even abuse. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties, ICCL, has stated that the definition of "relevant article" as currently provided in the Bill risks creating a very wide legislative basis that could facilitate discriminatory enforcement by gardaí. We have sought in this amendment to narrow the scope for these invasive powers through the removal of relevant articles in the amendments. There are a number of categories in that grouping in relation to amendment No.”
“It is one of the easiest targets and evidence suggests that it happens most often. Data published by the Health Research Board, HRB, shows that drugs are consumed at the same rates in the top and bottom 20% of areas by wealth but the reality is that stop and search powers are presently exercised disproportionately in areas that are heavily policed and in socio-economically marginalised areas. This means that the burden of stop and search falls disproportionately on young, working class men because of stigma that surrounds them and their communities, not because there is a greater prevalence of drug use in their communities.”
“Around 4,000 convictions are handed down, with a cumulative figure of 20,000 since 2020. What this points to is a relatively low-level offence, about which there is some debate as to whether it is even appropriate to be treating it as an offence. In fact, there have been recommendations for decriminalisation coming from very significant levels and expert bodies and calls for a health-led approach. These offences are making up a huge bulk of the offences that are actually being investigated and prosecuted. There is a concern that we will see this being an excessively used component of new Garda powers. Despite what has been asserted previously by An Garda Síochána, there has actually been extensive use of stop and search powers under section 3 to press charges against individuals in relation to simple drug possession.”
“The joint committee on drug uses is due to publish its final report shortly, which we hope will arrive at the same conclusion. It is not really possible to have a health-led approach to drug use without looking at these issues. While the Government has a stated commitment to a health-led approach, the provisions of this Bill are moving in the opposite direction, expanding the scope for the continued, very large-scale prosecution of individual and minor drug users as a punitive model. Very often, they can be the easier target rather than dealing with more systemic and larger-scale offenders. Recent data released under freedom of information, FOI, requests demonstrates that violations of section 3 for simple possession can be one of the most common drugs-related offences in Ireland, making up 63% of controlled drug crime incidents.”
“It criminalises addiction and compounds the trauma and stigma of drug users. The people most likely to be caught in possession are often those who are struggling with addiction, mental illness, homelessness, chronic poverty, social discrimination, stigma and exclusion. Criminal records can have long-lasting impacts on their ability to enter education or employment and can create significant complications in the context of the custody of children, for example, and in relation to visas and immigration. Criminalisation acts as a barrier to people seeking help with their addiction and can be considered as a violation of their right to health. The interim report from the Oireachtas committee on drug use, on which Senator Ruane sits, and the citizens' assembly, in its findings, pointed to recommendations of decriminalisation in this context.”
“I understood that because they were part of a grouping, I could move amendments on their behalf. I will continue speaking on amendment No. 6 for now. Senator Ruane spoke about the impact of stop and search in relation to section 3 offences under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977. She highlighted the fact that the Bill included controlled substances defined by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977 as a relevant article for the purposes of exercising stop and search powers. We are concerned about how this provision may be used to target people in possession of drugs for personal use, knowing the extent to which those powers are currently exercised to criminalise people who use drugs. Therefore, we are seeking to remove it through amendment No. 7. Criminalisation does not necessarily reduce drug use or stop the harmful use of drugs.”
“I will speak to amendment No. 6. At the end of the last debate, Senator Ruane spoke about the impact of stop and search in relation to section 3 offences under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977. Section 7(c) of the Garda Síochána (Powers) Bill includes controlled substances as defined by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977 as a relevant article.”
“The Government can limit the transit of weapons, but at minimum let us begin by looking honestly and directly. I urge that the Minister of State will not just say why he is or is not supporting this Bill, but that he will tell us what the Government is going to do about the flights and the illegal transit of arms through our airspace. What is the Government's plan? Is it to work with Senator Stephenson or does it have a new plan? We have been waiting years.”
“We then enter a world of consequences. This is the minimum for breaching our laws and refusing to bother even asking for an exemption. That leaves aside the fact that in my legislation I was looking to prohibit exemptions in certain circumstances. Senator Stephenson's Bill does not go that far. She is literally just asking to inspect the planes. She is presenting the tool the Government said is needed to inspect the planes and saying to inspect the planes. There is no justification for turning our eyes away again and refusing to step up to it. It does matter because our neutrality is our strength in the world because part of it is that we are credible actors. The fact is that lots of countries have brought in arms embargoes. Spain has brought it in. Slovenia has brought it in. This is not some impossible thing.”
“When they pack the plane with weapons there is a manifest that says there are weapons in the plane, and it is on its way to wherever it is on its way to. Those are the grounds. If that plane has not even had the decency in some cases to seek an exemption, because they have such disregard for our laws, the Minister should be able to say we are concerned about what we have been told is in the flight, and as they did not seek an exemption, we would like them to land for inspection. You do not have to drag them from the sky. However, by making that request for compliance and them breaching that request if they continue on and do not land, then you already have a breach. These are not shadowy vehicles. They are Lufthansa and FedEx. They are real companies. Those real companies that in many cases have headquarters in Ireland can be fined.”
“We had the current Minister, Darragh O'Brien, say he is going to use the existing powers. Two years on from that and there have been zero inspections. They have powers they are not using. My Bill was trying to tell them to use the powers they already have. There are powers we are told would be needed to do random inspections. These are being provided by the Bill. I have details of how it works. They are very clear powers to allow a regime of random inspections to take place. There is an argument put in that asks if we have to fly alongside the planes and stop them in mid-air, as if that is what is being asked for. No, the measure is simply that there is legitimate information like a manifest when they pack the plane in Halifax or wherever.”
“What is not happening right now and where Ireland is failing in courage, while people have this idea we will be part of these armies and save European values, is that we do not even have the courage to stand up to look at the planes and inspect them. We have an eyes wide shut approach that has been there for decades including through the illegal Iraq war. It has been there and it continues to be there. We do not look at what is in the planes. We have powers. I have been through three iterations. I had my own arms embargo Bill before this. The Bill being brought through now by Senator Stephenson is incredibly important, but the previous Bills were the same principle. We have heard different lines from Ministers. We heard the then Minister, Eamon Ryan, tell us he needed new random inspection powers. That is being offered here.”
“You do not destroy self-determination or engage in crimes of aggression. There is a morality in war. You do not kill civilians and children. You do not target children. The weapons and military equipment that have been used and have travelled through our airspace to Israel have broken all of those laws. The difficult choice, which I do not think should be difficult if you have a conscience, is to say we are brave enough to stand up for ourselves and to say we do not want to be complicit in war crimes. We do not accept being part of war crimes. The difficult choice is to be willing to ask if we can inspect this plane. There is this idea that we will step up. Again, I say this with absolute respect to those who speak, but when we talk about things we need to be clear.”
“We have joined alliances. They have included the United Nations and include the international system of international law, to which we have signed up. There are difficult choices. The brave choice is not about who we get behind and what compromises we make. War is not comics. With great respect for the good intentions of all who speak, war and weapons kill. The tools of war, when transited, are engaged in death. The death being dealt by the weapons that have passed through our airspace has been in breach of international law and of the greatest alignments and commitments we have made to play our part in the world, which is to be part of that structure of international law. Those core points and the idea that you do not use aggression are the four we heard from the ICC judges who were here this week.”
“To add, it might be useful if the Minister were to clarify whether that is the principle of the Bill. Is that the purpose of the Bill? Will this biometric analysis be used for principal purpose? Is that the intention? Is that the goal of the Bill? It would be useful for clarifying because that is not what it would seem to be in the text of how biometric analysis is being-----”
“Does the Minister believe that he would be able to say it was analysis, not identification, in relation to the breaches under Article 7 and Article 8 that they identified?”
“That is what it is. Straight up, it is not a different thing. This thing of introducing the names just does not stand up. The Minister also failed to answer the concerns as stated by the European Data Protection Board in its clear messaging in relation to the guideline on the use of facial recognition technology in exactly those scenarios the Minister outlined in remote processing in public spaces for identification purposes. Has the Minister considered the legal implications in relation to those guidelines from the European Data Protection Board? Does the Minister believe that naming it as "analysis" rather than as "identification" is getting around the ruling they made in relation to the exact scenarios he described? Is that the Minister's understanding?”
“It is not the comparison of biometric data with a list of names; for instance, biometric data compared with where you went to school or biometric data compared with any other factor. It is biometric data compared with biometric data - those two being put together. As for that bank of impressive cameras that Senator Kelleher saw recording in Cork, were they instantly deleting or were they recording? Can they go an hour back? Can they go two hours back? Can they go three hours back? Of course they can, because they are there for public safety, and they are databases. Unless that is a glide feed with no recording, it is a database and it is one of the databases that the other images will be compared against. The Minister is comparing biometric information with biometric information in another database and that is biometric identification.”
“That is dangerous and it has negative consequences for everybody. It has negative consequences in terms of how it might be used. It has negative consequences because it separates us from all of those proper and appropriate safeguards of the law. It has negative consequences even when it comes, as Senator Ruane has outlined, to the courts because it is totally ambiguous. We absolutely need to check the invented definition of "biometric identification" that has been put into this Bill. It separates itself from identifications because the AI Act provides that biometric identification is "comparison of ... biometric data with the biometric data". That is what biometric identification is.”
“We may not like everything about what has come out of that process, and others may not like it, but the point is that there has been a rigorous and long collective process of developing the tool, and of talking about that tool, what the safeguards are and how you use the tool. As we know, the use of any tool, however useful, can have inadvertent consequences. For example, it can cause injury and can cause damage. Now we have a Bill that says we are inventing a brand new tool. We have skipped the process, skipped all that EU discussion and skipped the AI Act. We have our own tool that we have invented here. It is not the tool we have surrounded with safeguards and hassle-filled safety equipment to determine how biometric identification will be used. It is not that; it is another tool that we can use how we like.”
“The analogy of a tool was used. As Senator Ruane has said, we all want the right tools to be in place so that we can do the work of identifying, of bringing justice to place, etc. However, what we have here is a tool which has lots of question marks about biometric identification. There has been a rigorous process of debate to figure out biometric identification and what the safeguards are. When you use a tool, is it a tool you need safety equipment with? Is it a tool that requires preparation? Is it a tool that should be deployed in this way or that way? Every aspect of how you use this tool in an appropriate way has been collectively worked on and thought about at European level.”
“The Minister identified and looked at the implications for GDPR in relation to that. Is this weird fudge of pretending it is not biometric identification also designed to get around the GDPR piece and the European Data Protection Board's clear messaging in relation to how facial recognition should and should not be used in public spaces?”
“There is extreme concern in relation to how those carve-outs seem to be applied and employed in relation to this Act and the AI Act. It still applies under GDPR. The European Data Protection Board previously issued guidelines on the use of facial recognition technology in the area of law enforcement. In those guidelines, it explicitly outlined a scenario very similar to those scenarios the Minister has been playing out, of people jumping on the bus, running away and going through the town and we are finding them. In these specific scenarios that involve remote processing of biometric data in public spaces for identification purposes, it found that such use would constitute a disproportionate interference with the data subject's rights under Article 7 and Article 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU.”
“Why is it unique to Ireland that we have to invent a brand new security concept called "biometric analysis" that is going to be just us doing our own thing? We also seek to lower the bar for what biometric identification is. It will not just be bad for us, but for Europe, if we try to create a lower, worse, narrower and inaccurate definition of "biometric identification" and stick it in a Bill literally so that we can point at it and say we are not doing that thing. It would be absurd if it was not so damaging, not just to ourselves, but to others across Europe. I have another point. The Minister mentioned the data protection piece and in response to that I note the guidelines of the European Data Protection Board. There may be carve-outs.”
“Biometric identification is literally the biometrics, including the face, the body and the movement. These are the things you are looking at when you are looking to identify someone and that is what is happening when you compare an image from one form of data storage place with another data storage place. With respect, if there really was a need for this separate category of biometric analysis that had to go so far as to say it was not biometric analysis and had to be tagged on at the end in an attempt to narrow that down, why on earth would the AI Act not say biometric analysis was only against a particular database that had named individuals? Why is that not in the AI Act? Why is there not a separate "biometric analysis" definition in the EU Act? It has been a long process. There was a lot of discussion.”
“Consider the data we store in relation to our transport system or the data stored from public CCTV cameras. Those are databases. Once you are comparing images with other images that are stored, you are comparing with databases. Then there is this suggestion we will have one form of database that is the designated database with names in it and if we compare it with that, it is going to be biometric identification. Names are not necessarily part of biometric data. They are an extra bit. That is like saying we have a database of people with red hats. It is literally picking one factor, which is not a biometric factor, and saying that is what will determine that it is biometric identification. The Government is picking a non-biometric factor and saying that is biometric identification and otherwise it is just biometric analysis.”
“What is happening is we are saying we believe this person in one image and this person in a second image are the same. Where are these two images stored? They are stored in forms of public databases. It does not matter that it is traffic footage. It does not matter what form of database. I go back to the Recital 17 of the Act, which refers to "the comparison of a person’s biometric data with the biometric data contained in a reference database, irrespectively of the ... technology, processes or types of biometric data used." Thus, it is not a matter of saying this is the database we compare them with that has the names in it and if we compare it with other databases, it does not count. That is effectively what the Minister is saying.”
“Again, this is just an appeal for honesty in this. When the Minister spoke, he used the word "identify" multiple times. He spoke of identifying "unidentified individuals" and assisting in "identifying". What is happening is identification.”
“The Minister is now saying we will talk about biometric identification at another time but that this legislation is about biometric analysis. An attempt is being made to almost try to exclude all the relevant information from the debate and discussion on biometric identification. I plead with the Minister for honesty here and a reflection of the fact that biometric analysis is effectively biometric identification. Let us not try to create an easy opt-out. Let us, instead, have a meaningful discussion on biometric identification and everything that comes with it.”
“The Government, therefore, has decided to put a new thing in the mix called “biometric analysis”, which means something slightly different and where it can wing it and do things its own way. It is a weak ploy to literally rename something. It does not stand up in this case and did not stand up for the Department of social protection when it tried to do this. It is a distraction from the proper discussion we should be able to have around biometric identification. All the activities the Minister has described are biometric identification. This is a distraction as well from having a discussion of how we can put safeguards in place in relation to this concept, how to do it responsibly, how we can address it in the best and most appropriate way and how we can bring ourselves into the closest alignment with best international practice.”
“The company employed to fulfil the contract to make these public service cards was originally named Biometric Card Services. The company renamed itself when it got the State contract to Security Card Concepts. The idea was to literally rename the company, whose title accidentally mentioned that what it was doing was biometric, as Security Card Concepts. When I look at biometric analysis, a little bit of the Security Card Concepts situation comes to mind. It sounds a little bit like the same thing. We know what biometric identification is. It comes with the proper weight and precedent of the law and has been identified as an area with regulations attached internationally.”
“It reminds me, very vividly, of an attempt previously by a Department to try to literally redefine its way out of a breach of European law. That was the Department of Social Protection. I remember having a discussion with the then Minister, Regina Doherty, where it was said that we simply had different understandings of what biometric meant. The problem, though, was that her definition and understanding was wrong and was found to be wrong by the Data Protection Commissioner. The Department of Social Protection at that time was keen to claim that the thing it was doing, which was clearly biometric, was not biometric. We pointed out that the proposed public service card contained biometric information and the Data Protection Commissioner confirmed it was biometric information later.”
“If there is an image of somebody and a video of somebody and it is said that is the same person in both instances, then they are being identified. That is biometric identification. The fact that it is not known whether the person's name is Stephen, John, Tony or whatever else might be is a little bit by the by, because this aspect is concerned with biometric identification and not named identification. The attempt to narrow down the definition of “biometric identification”, to say it is only applicable in the cases of named individuals and thereby leave this whole world open for a completely newly invented concept of biometric analysis does not fly. It is not consistent with what is happening in the AI Act and in the law.”
“I agree with the concerns raised in this regard. With respect to the Minister, the recital of the AI Act talks about the "identification of natural persons, without their ... involvement ... through the comparison of a person’s biometric data with the biometric data contained in a reference database". The Minister pointed out the language that has been added into the legislation, which probably does need to be amended on Report Stage, is relation to biometric identification. The Minister seems to be adding in the fact of a person being named in the context of the definition. If individuals are not named, then it is not identification. The Minister himself, though, used the words "to identify unidentified individuals" and assist in "identifying” multiple times during his own speech. What is being done is identifying.”
“What the Minister of State said was "never". If he was saying it was never the case that an international agreement that was out of line with the Constitution or EU law could be enforceable, does that "was never" period apply to the Energy Charter Treaty or not?”
“Is it the case that awards in the Energy Charter Treaty were never enforceable if they compromised the Constitution or EU law? The experience we have of arbitration bodies is solely through the energy treaty. It is a very relevant example. Is it the case that there never was, or not? We know cases are being taken against Ireland on the Energy Charter Treaty. We know the Minister failed to deny the fact that the Energy Charter Treaty had influence and had been a factor when making and considering laws. I refer to that chilling effect we have talked about in the past. That is our experience. That is the relevant, happening-right-now experience Ireland has and I wish to know where that fits within this High Court piece. Does the High Court enforce or not enforce orders made under the Energy Charter Treaty, which Ireland has exited?”
“This is the section which states: For the avoidance of doubt, it is hereby declared that an award made by a body empowered to make awards pursuant to an international agreement to which this section applies is not, and never was, enforceable in the State if enforcing the award would compromise— (a) the constitutional order of the State, or (b) the autonomy of the legal order of the European Union. The Minister of State was saying that awards are not and never were enforceable in the State if enforcing them would compromise the constitutional order of the State or the autonomy of the legal order of the European Union. He also allows for the widening of this to future agreements. I am just asking does that apply to the Energy Charter Treaty?”
“The Minister of State is, given the language in the Bill. The Minister of State talks about ten great years. Those are the ten great years of provisional application, which we have already had, which we are already applying and which are currently being gambled by the addition of an investor court component. I say that just to be clear. The Minister of State talked a lot about all of those issues but in his Bill he is not talking about that. It is stated that the Minister may, after consultation, prescribe an international agreement as an agreement to which the section applies.”