The Government wants to establish a parallel justice system whereby corporations, private investors, landlords, and vulture funds can sue the Irish State if it interferes with their “legitimate” expectation of making profits. Paul Murphy and Richard Boyd Barrett were speaking in the Dáil this week on the Arbitration (Amendment) Bill 2025:
Paul Murphy said, “This is dystopian stuff. Under an innocuous title what is being proposed is a fundamental challenge to democracy, sovereignty and people’s environmental and labour standards.
“What the Government is proposing to do is to sign Ireland up to a parallel justice system. This is not a justice system that the Minister of State or I can access; it is a justice system only for corporations. That is what the investor court system, the renamed investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, is about.
“It is a parallel justice system accessible only by corporations for corporations to sue states if they intervene and interfere with their 'legitimate' expectation of making profits. That is what this is about. We should be having a referendum on it because the results of this could truly be catastrophic.
“Investor courts are completely against the public interest. They are rigged, private courts, designed to take the side of private investors against elected governments and to put profits before people every single time. According to the United Nations, Investor State Dispute Settlement or investor courts have awarded corporations the equivalent of the combined GDP of 45 small and poor countries. The average award is €250 million but awards of €1 billion or multi-billion euro awards are not uncommon.
“What could that look like in Ireland? If we introduce rent controls that actually bring rents down, a Canadian investor, under this new law, can now sue the Irish State. The investor had an expectation when it invested because the Government told the investor it would be able to continue to jack up rents as much as it wanted, and now its legitimate expectation of making this profit has been cut across by the Government's action, so the investor will sue.
“Another investor might be investing in liquefied natural gas terminals because the Government has given the go-ahead for that, then when a future government comes to power and says this is of course madness and there is to be no more fossil fuel infrastructure, the investor can now sue the Irish State.
“It would not be in the Irish courts, which is the crucial point, but in parallel courts accessible only by corporations. It would sue the Irish State there for billions in lost revenue because of indirect expropriation.
“This is about giving corporations the power to get massive amounts of money from the State and chill progressive legislation into the future.
Richard Boyd Barrett added, “this is the definition of the corporate takeover of Europe and the Government wants to sign us up to this. If we do, it will be very difficult to get out of it. With the investor court system we would be bound under the obligations of the investor court system, a parallel justice system which subverts our own legal and legislative systems, for 20 years.
“We could be potentially sued by corporations which decide that the actions of the courts or a government here infringe on their rights and expectations to make profits. We will be tied into those agreements for 20 years.
“This stuff is happening. ExxonMobil, one of the biggest oil companies in the world, has done it. Philip Morris, the big cigarette company, has done it. French waste companies have sued the Argentinian Government. It is happening.
“We could be sued in a parallel legal system, by property investors or vulture funds in other words. Wealth management companies could sue on the basis that they had invested in Irish property and the Government's actions might infringe on their ability to make profits in the future. It is absolutely shocking this is being proposed.
“None of that means we are against trade - fair trade. The idea that we have to give to corporations the right to subvert our legal processes or our democratic processes in order to have trade between countries is an absolute nonsense”.