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

The Minister and I are the same in that we have nothing on our heads to spray. Anyway, we are managing.

They never told us that nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean 50 years ago actually caused the serious damage to the ozone layer. I am thankful it is now mending and curing. It has nothing to do with policies in any country in recent times.

I am very worried about this agreement because it will have a severe negative impact on farmers. Farmers must be protected because of the consequences if the farming industry goes down. Farming is facing a serious crisis currently. If it is impacted negatively any further, it will hurt the whole country. When farming is doing badly, the whole country will not be doing well.

11 o’clock

It is rumoured that the national herd may have to be reduced. I will not support any policy that will impinge negatively on our agricultural production. It is said that if Ireland misses its 2020 targets, the likelihood is that this country will be fined. Three years is too short a period to achieve whatever targets the Minister is talking about. The honest truth is that they will not be achieved in that time. As I said to the Minister, farmers are at the crossroads. Many young farmers are declining to take over the family farm. They are refusing to take it from the parents and are going different directions because they see that they will be doing very well if they have one good year out of every five. Only two or three years ago, farmers were told to increase milk production. What is the story now? There is no fair price for milk, and many of the farmers who went into production for the first time or increased their production have serious financial problems at present. The Government is doing very little to help them. The last Government told them that the Chinese would drink milk but, as I understand it, they are not interested in drinking milk at all.

Forestry was referred to. It was said it will help to reduce carbon emissions. However, the grant for planting on marginal land, which is not agriculturally productive in many ways but would create an income for farmers, has been set up in such a way that one must have 80% green ground and 20% marginal ground. On any farm or landholding in south Kerry and many other parts of Kerry it is the other way around: 20% green ground and 80% marginal ground. I ask the Minister to reintroduce the grant for planting forestry. If the Government is saying this will help to reduce emissions, it needs to get its show together and give farmers a proper grant for planting marginal ground because at present it is not there and no planting is taking place.

The Government blames climate change for flooding. The fact is that every river is blocked. The Shannon has not been cleared out since the English cleared it out in the 1800s. Why is that? In the past 20 years, we have seen the introduction of cross-compliance, whereby if the farmer breaks any rule or cleans out a river, the Inland Fisheries has farmers and landowners insistent that they will not go near the river. This has meant that all the rivers have been clogged because farmers cannot afford to lose their payments. That is their bread and butter. That is what they feed their families from, and if they were to lose their payments, that would be the end of them. They could not feed their families, send their children to school or keep going at all, so cross-compliance has ensured that nobody has gone near a river. Take the Flesk river in Kerry which goes down through the parish of Glenflesk. A total of 22 houses and the community hall in the area were recently flooded, and the church was almost flooded. The national primary road we need to get emergency services in and out of our county flooded. The road and the houses did not sink, but the level of water has increased because the water cannot flow freely through our Flesk river and into the lakes of Killarney. That is what is happening. The Government should address these issues and call the Inland Fisheries aside to get it to listen to reason because what it is at is not reasonable. It is depriving the rivers of fish because the bushes are closing in over the rivers and the fish need sunlight to reproduce and exist in our rivers. Inland Fisheries is hurting what it is supposed to favour.

Regarding diesel and electric vehicles, why talk about electric cars when we have nowhere to plug them in to charge them up? It is only pure waffle to say that people should diversify and buy electric cars when there are no facilities to plug them in. They can only travel 100 km at a time. If the Minister were travelling around Sneem tonight in an electric car and going as far as Caherdaniel and wanted to come back to Sneem, he would not get there. It is ridiculous. What is the Government talking about? The farming community is the easiest target. I can see that farmers will be hit so I do not support this agreement. A few years ago, the Government incentivised people to go down the road of getting diesel cars, which was grand, and many people have done that. However, diesel is now almost as dear as petrol. There was talk that the Government would raise excise duty and VAT on diesel. Gladly, it did not, but sadly, the cost of diesel has increased anyway. It is now nearly on a par with petrol. I ask the Minister and the entire Government how it is that when barrels of oil have never been cheaper, oil is getting as dear as it was when a barrel of oil was at its most expensive.

We could do a lot to have cheaper energy. I refer to wind energy and solar panels. There is no policy on solar panels in this country, as far as I can see. People ask me about solar energy. There is no such thing as applying for planning permission for them, yet people are hurt when they hear that solar panels are to be put near them. There needs to be defined policy on solar panels. I fully support wind energy projects. I do ask that they not be put near homes, particularly family homes. They need to be kept a distance away. Some say 700 or 800 m is a fair distance. We need to support the wind energy industry more because it is impossible to get planning permission for a wind turbine project at present. Hydro-energy is an impossibility. Inland Fisheries will not let us clean out the rivers so that people do not get flooded. The Minister knows that installing hydro projects in rivers will not work unless the Government talks to Inland Fisheries and gets its act together in that regard.

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