Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am happy to speak on this Bill, although I am very perplexed about the manner in which it has arrived in the Chamber which is as a result of a Supreme Court judgment. Why has this happened at half past the eleventh hour of the Dáil term? What is of more concern is the question of where the planning and environment Ministers are? I have no issue with the Minister of State present with whom I have worked for a year. Perhaps the brief of the Minister of State covers this but I believed his was an education brief. These Ministers could do with an education on how to treat this House. We are elected to pass and to consider legislation and to put forward amendments, and the Minister said he intends to table Government amendments to this Bill next week. Where is the time to discuss those amendments, because we do not know what they will be? The debate today could be void and empty because Government amendments are going to be brought forward. I have never seen the beat of it and I am nearly 15 years or more here. It is shocking.

This legislation is being rushed and 19 pieces of legislation have come before the House in the past number of weeks. We had 12 such pieces of legislation in the year before that. This is a pattern that has crept in. The Ceann Comhairle is here. We divided these up this morning at the Business Committee meeting but it is not right, if you ask me. This would appear to be a carefully laid out plan because none of the backbenchers is coming in. I appreciate Deputy Leddin is present but no backbencher from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael or the Green Party was present when legislation was being dealt with this week. It is as if as they said let it off and let the Opposition huff and puff and bring the house down but we will pass this legislation in any event. Being an Independent Group, we could not watch it. There was a list of speakers, but they were not turning up to speak because they do not have time.

There are very significant issues in planning. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle has left the Chamber, which I appreciate. She raised issues on which I differ fundamentally around the area of An Taisce. An Taisce has done great work in the schools with the green schools flags and on many other issues, including on the environment. I resent, and I have raised it on this floor, the way it treated an industry in south Kilkenny, in respect of which, thankfully, a sod was turned last week after several court challenges. I have no problem with people taking court challenges but the Taoiseach said to me one day that we have to limit the number of judicial reviews taken, which we must do. An Taisce had no issue with the plant, the emissions, the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, licence or anything else but had an issue with the cowherd. How weird is that? The building itself is a pristine cheesemaking plant where there is a ready market for its products with Dutch investors and we almost lost it.

Meanwhile, we were ferrying last summer and this summer milk from the south Kilkenny, all of Tipperary - my area - and other counties up to the Strathroy Dairy because we could not cope with the processing.

What about the CO2 levels there and the emissions from the trucks? How narrow-minded and perverse are the members of An Taisce? Deputy Collins, myself and my colleagues met with its members and we got nothing but disdain from them. We were to have a follow-up meeting with them but we never did. They need to be reined in as do all of these NGOs.

In reply to a parliamentary question put recently by Deputy Nolan, it was stated that there are 36,000 NGOs costing €5.5 billion of taxpayers’ money annually. What would that not do for back to school costs or to lessen the cost of living crisis if half or nine tenths of that were applied to it? These bodies have mushroomed all over the place and are effectively dictating policy to the Government. This Government and previous Governments have given them too much of a hearing. The plant I mentioned almost disappeared because of people who have good jobs, who are retired with big pensions, who have public jobs and who live in nice places where they themselves were granted planning. They do not want anybody else to have planning permission. This is a case of the fox minding the henhouse. These people were granted planning in lucrative areas, such as in Ballina in my county and other lovely areas, but they object to anybody else being granted such permissions. It is a shocking situation.

We did not meet the president of An Taisce, Fr. McDonagh. We would have loved to have done so but we met his colleagues. We might as well have been talking to Petticoat Loose and the Legend of Bay Lough, which is down in south Tipperary also. Like other people here, I am shocked to think of the amendments because we do not know what the Government will bring in next week.

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