Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We will take ten minutes each.

When I look at this Bill, I wonder where we are going as a country. Every single page of it has some reference to EU legislation. Do we own our own country? Are we in control of our own destination or is the EU telling us, day in, day out, from when we go to bed to whatever we do in life, where we are going? Are we gone that bad as a country? Have we lost our patronage, so that we have to take everything from them and put it in?

I see ownership of Killarney National Park is being transferred to the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. Look at the Department's behaviour through the years regarding the turf issue and various things that occurred in different parts of the country. For example, in Limerick the National Parks and Wildlife Service tried to ram it down people's throats that there was a turlough in a place near Limerick even though it was gone for 20 years. It tried to ram it down people's throats about bogs. It brought out its own science and now, 18 years later, it has been proved that the science is up to 40% wrong, when independent consultants were brought in. Is this the way to go forward in getting a national park looked after or getting it under the auspices of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht? The record of the National Parks and Wildlife Service is despicable and deplorable, if one goes through what has gone on in each part of the country.

I look at this document and all I see is penalties. The one thing that strikes me is that we all encourage entrepreneurship. We all encourage youngsters to get out there and do things. There is a sad reality in this. If a youngster beside the Minister of State in Cork, or beside any of us in any part of the country, cuts a tree and decides to bag it to be a young entrepreneur, if they get a few bags of turf in their father's, mother's, uncle's or aunt's shed, and go down the road to try to sell it, they need a licence. That is the reality of what we are doing with this. If they have not got a licence, we have the on-the-spot fine.

This is a great country in which we will cripple people and discourage them from working or becoming entrepreneurs.

It will be necessary to make amendments to the Bill on Committee Stage. While I fully agree that a licence is needed to sell fuels, youngsters selling bags of timber or turf should not have to look over their shoulders fearing they will be given a fixed charge penalty - this is a lovely new phrase - of €500.

People have to get all their paperwork from the Environmental Protection Agency. In 2009 and 2010, the EPA produced reports on Glenamaddy Lake in County Galway. The State pumps 200 tonnes of raw sewage into the lake every day but does not face fixed charge penalties from the EPA, whereas someone with €100 of timber will receive a fine.

Every part of the Bill creates costs for people by requiring them to get different types of licences. What are we doing as a nation? We are telling people that if they go right, left, up or down, they will be charged more to be in business and survive. Why are we doing this? It is because our magic masters in the great European Union have told us to do it. We can continue down this road or we can consider where we are going as a nation and ask whether these rules and regulations are costing jobs. Are the do-gooders both here and in Europe who tell us what to do causing more emigration? Do the 35,000 civil servants in Europe believe they must do something every day to justify their existence and produce bits of papers with more and more regulations? The Bill features references to EU regulation throughout.

When will some Minister ask whether this is good or bad? As a nation, are we able to be patriotic by standing up for ourselves and believing in ourselves or will we take this from our so-called masters in Europe, day in and day out? I do not class them as our masters.

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