Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We have been skirting around the subject for a while now and it has come to a certain point. Governments in Ireland and elsewhere will be left with a massive challenge to clean up the mess left by previous governments. The Government discusses doing so in economic terms in respect of the people who were in office before it. On an environmental level, people are waking up to the fact that there are massive challenges which we are not meeting. I will quote briefly from Naomi Klein's book This Changes Everythingon climate issues, which is a must-read for everybody:

In virtually most countries, the political class accepts the premise that it is not the place of government to tell large corporations what they can and cannot do, even when public health and welfare are clearly at stake.

We need to be a great deal more firm on the point that fracking will not be good for Ireland and the Irish people. It is simply too easy to damage the water table. A simple septic tank can damage the water table and it is frightening what fracking can do. The Government should be stronger on the issue.

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