Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I wish to start by saying we need to identify the ongoing challenge that climate change is bringing to the world, in particular to the world of food production. The year 2016 was the hottest one on record, globally. It was 1° above previous average temperatures. The increased extreme weather conditions, which lead to flooding, heavy downpours, storms and especially the increased flooding and downpours in the west, were accurately predicted a number of years ago. It has been shown that such occurrences are not one-off events but will be repeated. The incessant rainfall in the west, in particular in areas such as Kerry, which saw the highest rainfall in years, is, to quote Liam Dunne of the IFA , "disastrous" for the farming community. He described what happened in Kerry as the crop literally being beaten to the ground and at the end of the season there being nothing left to harvest. Unlike what the Kerry Deputy, Danny Healy-Rae believes, I do not accept that this is an act of the man above, rather it is clear scientific evidence------

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