Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We are not doing this right. It was mentioned that a ship would have to be sunk if the battery of a truck within it went on fire and I was thinking of the last time I went to Holyhead, which was a grand trip. I would not like to have to try to ditch that on the way over if a fire started on it. If that is the reality, that is the reality. The rapeseed oil proposal needs to be developed and that is a positive. Mr. Cullinan said he has so much land and if some of it was used for tillage, how do we produce the food? That is where organisations such as the IFA need to come together to see how we can come to the table with solutions. Likewise when we had the beet industry in this country, we had a lot of tillage. We had mostly rotational crops in the land and that was right across where I live and now I barely see a plough, never mind a field being ploughed, because they have all gone to beef or sheep. We had a beet factory in Tuam and it was a great employer but all of that is gone and it is history. The most important thing about it is that mistakes were made in that decision. I believe we are continuing to make the same type of mistake by having a knee-jerk reaction and saying we have to do this, we have to stop this, without having an alternative in place.

The witnesses might wish to comment on that. In seconding the proposal to have a forestry forum, I believe that the stakeholders in this country, who are the people running food production in this country right across the board, have a responsibility to come up with solutions. If we rely on policies, they will never see the light of day.

As for wind turbines and so on, what I have seen in the past 12 months is investors coming in, talking to farmers, signing them up and creating huge divisions in communities, with people getting scared as the process goes along. There is the concept of having green energy and how we will have lovely birds flying around the place and everything green. We end up with neighbours not talking to one another. Having that kind of thing going on is the worst scenario of all. We are closing our eyes to it and allowing the investors, no more so than in the forestry, to dictate everything. We put in place the policies, they take it over and we become the pawns in the game. We are at a crossroads if we are to sort climate action and meet our targets in that regard. We are blindly following a target without looking at the consequences of it.

Before anyone responds, I want just to acknowledge the fact that 16.5% of the witnesses are female, namely Ms McDonagh, who is from my constituency. Well done to her.