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

I apologise if I dipped out before; my connection has been coming in and out. I thank Mr. Barnes and all the witnesses for being here because this is an important engagement. I thought it was ironic this morning, at a time when inflation stood at 8.2% in May and there is all this energy insecurity and fuel uncertainty in respect of cost and availability, that the news headlines focused on how we are going to achieve our climate action targets for 2030. I refer to us being beaten into submission in the context where, whatever else might happen, it is necessary to achieve those targets at whatever cost that may entail. People were being interviewed and giving their viewpoints on this subject in respect of the full enormity of what this endeavour is going to cost not yet having been realised. I was thinking of someone having porridge, perhaps choking on hearing those comments this morning, and wondering if these headlines were really coming at this time.

I preface all I am saying by stating that I have as much, and maybe more, of a concern about the environment as anybody else. I am not a climate change denier, but I am a realist. I live in the real world of representing people, many of whom live in rural locations and must travel to work at enormous cost. Their children must also be transported to schools. These people are living in rural locations as they are perfectly entitled to do. As I have always said, whether people are living in Blackrock, Ballinskelligs, Templenoe or here in any part of the centre of Dublin city, they are entitled to live where they and their families wish to be.

How sensible is it to be in the Dáil one day imposing taxes upon taxes in the name of trying to reduce our carbon emissions while at the same time telling people they have to suck it up? The Government is also saying we must introduce measures to take the bite out of this harsh financial reality and so far all it has come up with is a reduction in the price of fuel, which actually went up on the two nights previous to the deduction. It went up more on the Sunday and Monday than it came down on the Tuesday. There was also the famous €200 in respect of electricity. I can tell the Government that is well forgotten now because the prices people are paying on their fuel and energy bills are astronomical. There are also issues around energy insecurity because the Government did not have the gumption to go ahead with an liquefied natural gas facility in the Shannon Estuary. Any of the decisions it has taken so far have resulted in us being overly reliant on importing our energy from England and France. That is going to lead us to-----