Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Does the committee realise the harm being done to the country and to the people that are trying to keep it going? Are they going to be broken further? Farmers are in a bad enough position as matters stand with Brexit looming. We do not know if it will be a hard border , a soft border or what kind of border, but one thing is sure, it will not be as good as they had it. There is a decline in farming. It has been mentioned by others. There will be a greater decline. The farming community made up the backbone of the country and kept it going back over the ages and the centuries. When they give up, the country will give up. That is my belief.

We are talking about ways to help. Planting of forestry is restricted if it is to be covered by grants. There has to be 80% green ground and 20% other rough ground. Down our way, it is always the other way; we have only 10% or 20% of green ground and the rest of it is rough ground. All of that type of ground has been used since 1950 to grow the grandest of trees. My father started work in forestry in 1950 and there have been two crops out of it since. It was pure rough ground way up the mountain. All that has stopped since either 2011 or 2012. That would one way of utilising the land because it is hardly fit for anything else.

The other thing I am very hurt about is the notion in the Project Ireland 2040 document that we will not be able to burn any turf or peat after 2030. That is unfair to people cutting a bit of turf for their own fires. We have notions from some Deputies that it would be better to leave the turf in the bog. I can tell them that there would be a lot of people in Gneeveguilla, Kilcummin, Scartaglen, Killorglin, Kilgarvan and all the way to Cahersiveen that would be fairly cold inside in their houses if they could not cut a bit of turf. This is what is going on. It is absolutely ridiculous. The Chair is part of the Government. He is doing his very best but I can tell him and his party that if this is rammed down the rural people's throats on top of everything else they are taking, he will get an answer again some day.