Michelle Mulherin (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Whether there was a whip applied in the vote on this amendment, I could never support something along the lines of what has been proposed as it shows a great lack of understanding. Primarily, it shows that there is a major divide in relation to urban and rural areas in who will carry the burden in meeting our climate action and climate change ambitions. In one fell swoop, rural areas are taking the wind farms and whatever other energy infrastructure and transmission lines are required. For the most part, it is rural people who are being asked to do so. In some quarters, they are talking about hammering farmers. There is that narrative, not only among extreme elements but also in the mainstream media. Now we are being told that we will not have roads. In my county 71% of people are deemed to live in rural areas. On average, in the west, taking out Galway, 66% of people are deemed to be living in rural areas. Not only will we not be talking about new roads, we will not be able to maintain the roads we have. Unrealistic and out-of-touch amendments like this make one despair, except in so far as we might, I hope, be able to have a more logical discussion about it.

During the period in which the Celtic tiger was roaring roads were not built everywhere. I am talking about strategic roads such as major inter-urban routes. As such, we are only playing catch-up in the west and the north west. The first piece of that infrastructure was the Tuam bypass, but no major road was built into the west during that time. We do not have a major inter-urban route. We would love to have a high-speed train service, but we do not even have that, although we have a train service. The roads are for the socio-economic benefit of the people living in the region to permit it to grow, develop and compete in some way with the rest of the country which it is unable to do at present. It makes a joke of conversations on a just transition and how this and that will impact when people in some areas are coming from so far behind in terms of investment in infrastructure. It is holding them back. Farmers in these areas need to work with multinational companies because their small farms are on marginal land, meaning that they cannot derive a living wage from producing food. There has to be a reality check in what we are about and how we are asking a lot more from some people than others in meeting our climate action ambitions.

This proposal is off the radar in the case of regions that have not seen investment. It is all very well to say we already have the roads we need when we do not have the major roads we need to serve our areas. The idea is to revise everything, throw it on the scrap heap and say, "I am sorry guys; you missed out." These are the same areas that are crucified by environmental designations as European sites under special areas of conservation rules and the habitats and birds directives. We cannot have a road or a bridge built because of the freshwater pearl mussel, alluvial woodland and a list of species we have to protect, while at the same time there is no regard for humans in the equation. It is only wildlife. The green agenda is that this will be a wildlife preserve and that human beings can be tagged as wildlife in that picture, which is the only one being painted. It is absolutely ridiculous and I will not stand for it. I would not be worth my salt, coming from where I do, knowing and living among the people and seeing their struggles, if I was to listen to this.