THE COLLAPSE of talks on a new world trade deal has been described as a "disappointment" by the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Mary Coughlan, but she maintained that the failure of the talks was not "a complete disaster" for Ireland.
Ms Coughlan expressed disappointment that it had not been possible for the World Trade Organisation to agree a new deal. She added that the negotiations had been a very complex process covering a wide range of areas, with a particular emphasis during the past week on agriculture and industrial goods, and involving more than 150 countries, each with different interests.
She insisted that she and the Minister for Agriculture, Brendan Smith, the Minister of State for Trade and Commerce, John McGuinness, and Peter Power, the Minister for Overseas Development, had gone to Geneva with the aim of securing "a comprehensive, ambitious and balanced trade deal". She said that Ministers had used every opportunity to assert Ireland's interests, whether through meetings of the EU General Affairs and External Relations Council, or bilaterally with various countries, including the French presidency of the EU as well as the EU Commission.
Mr Smith said that throughout the long series of meetings, he had continued to express the Government's strong concerns about the agriculture proposals and, in particular, the potential impact of the proposals on the Irish beef sector, and had tried to ensure that Ireland played a central role, along with a number of like-minded countries, in protecting the interests of European agriculture.
Mr McGuinness said that a deal would have offered very positive prospects for Ireland arising from progress in the services area, which had the potential to inject real gains into the Irish economy and provide benefits to Irish service providers from greater access to markets, particularly in emerging economies in such sectors as software, financial and other business sectors.
In terms of manufacturing, Mr McGuinness said that reduced tariffs would have improved the competitiveness of Irish exports, thus supporting Irish manufacturing jobs and providing new opportunities for Irish companies.
The Ministers added in a statement that they remained committed to achieving an acceptable trade deal.
The Fine Gael agriculture spokesman, Michael Creed, accused the Government of incompetence in the way it had handled the trade talks and said its stewardship of the negotiations was inept.
WTO leaders met in Geneva yesterday to consider the fallout from the failure of negotiators to agree a new deal to liberalise world trade. They failed to reach agreement because of a sharp split between the United States and India over a proposed special safeguard mechanism for the agriculture sector.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio's Morning Ireland, the European Commission director general for trade David O'Sullivan said the collapse was a "serious setback".
Mr O'Sullivan admitted he would not have predicted that the negotiations would fall on the issue of import controls, but he observed that India and the United States were looking over their shoulders at what they could sell to their domestic constituencies. He argued that the risk of global protectionism, in terms of import tariffs, was now high.
Mr O'Sullivan said it would probably be a "year or two" before trade talks could restart, and that this would inevitably take place from the point where negotiations halted on Tuesday.