Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Brennan for coming in and giving such heartfelt testimony. I know he is not here for sympathy and wants to get a resolution to this. I was struck by part of Mr. Dempsey's testimony when he said it is rare for vets when they identify a problem to get behind a farmer so forcefully and affirmatively, so it is very evident that Mr. Brennan has a case. We probably have a history in this country of agencies and State bodies failing people, but it is probably rare for five State agencies combined to fail one person, and this is certainly what is happening in Mr. Brennan's case. Teagasc, the Department, the HSE, Kilkenny County Council and the EPA must come before the committee to answer questions.

We will get some answers at this committee but Mr. Brennan's case shines a light on what has been an horrific chapter in his life and a very dark passage in terms of accountability and responsibility. Mr. Brennan was failed by Kilkenny County Council when the site was given planning permission. Based on my limited experience of engineering, I can say you would not put a facility like that in a valley where Mr. Brennan's farm would be 12 metres over the chimney. It beggars belief.

The process deserves a full inquiry. A lot of documents need to be salvaged. We are very much at the starting point but nothing short of a full inquiry into what happened on Mr. Brennan's farm will suffice. Mr. Brennan deserves it and, more importantly, his neighbours deserve it. In his very detailed testimony, he spoke of the parish priest speaking out about the number of deaths and the incidence of cancer in the local area. I mean no disrespect to Mr. Brennan but this is a wider issue for his community. He probably bore the brunt of it and I can see pain and anguish etched on his face. As his neighbour and friend Mr. Walshe would have said, it would have broken lesser men and Mr. Brennan is a remarkable man. There is no doubt that the least this man and his community deserve is a full inquiry with all agencies of the State brought in and their evidence given and held to account. There is a lot of documentation to which Mr. Brennan has had no access despite the best efforts of Jim Crilly. I am sure there are documents and reports lying in drawers and archive boxes not just in the EU but in the Department. It behoves this committee to get the ball rolling, but the end result is that there needs to be a full and detailed inquiry into what happened on Mr. Brennan's farm. If it takes a week, month or year, so be it. If we were able to do it for planning inquiries, we can surely do it for a farmer and a community that were quite literally brought to their knees.

I again thank Mr. Brennan and his wife for having the strength and determination to go through with it. Something like this would have broken many households and families. It is a testimony to his strength that he has managed to come this far. I was going through his catalogue. He battled Europe for ten years and then suddenly a box was sent back. We have testimony in many instances where people were given the remains of children to take home in boxes, but ten years of Mr. Brennan's life were dispatched back in a box that had to be booked onto a plane because it was so big. It was brought back but he got no result there either. We failed him as a society and a State. At the very minimum, this man deserves a full and frank inquiry. Whatever repercussions that brings, let them flow.