Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Good woman, but this Bill needs to support them and allow them to do that. They are volunteers. They are taxpayers who have paid their taxes and are doing the work that they want to do and that they love doing, to help and foster nature and wildlife. We are not all mad with machines, cutting the heads off people along with everything else. We are constantly being talked at by the head of the RSA. I had a man who had a good idea on how to save people's lives. He got an appointment, after waiting for 12 months, in Sligo. The lady from the RSA did not even turn up. The appointment was made through the Minister's office. That is the contempt that ordinary people with good ideas about road safety are treated with. These people need to be reawakened, brought back down to reality, and made understand that people in Ireland must live, exist and have roads that are safe and where we can see signposts or have a view to make sure that cars or buses or lorries are not coming the other way. A lorry mirror costs €200 and they are driving out in the middle of the road because bushes are hitting them on each side. We should be allowed to cut almost all year round, with the exception of the very high season, to ensure road safety.

There are many regulations on road safety, yet when it comes to the simple things, the people in question cannot see beyond their noses. This also applies to the waterways which are governed by another quango that is trying to enhance the experience for people with big boats and forgetting all about ordinary people. The same applies to the fishing clubs. I salute the work that the fishing and gun clubs do. There is a wonderful fishing and gun club in my area which does tremendous work, as there are such clubs in many other areas of the country as well. They do not need the RSA to tell them what to do because they would not know gorse from furze, or a snipe from a swan. They do not care. They have such contempt for the ordinary people who know all about the countryside and want to protect it.

We need amendments to this Bill. I deal with the beekeepers in Tipperary who are part of a wonderful organisation. I will meet them and talk to them, because they are worried. They have concerns, but the ordinary people of Tipperary should be consulted. The ordinary people are not out to damage beehives or limit the production of honey. Fences by the roadside make up a small minority of the fences in rural Ireland. Some years ago we were paying people to set aside land and leave it idle.

It was crazy EU policy again. Now, we cannot cut the bushes or hedges. Some semblance of common sense must be introduced in this Bill. Somebody must put manners on the Road Safety Authority, RSA, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, and the plethora of agencies like them and not let them treat people like minions, as Cromwell and the British landlords did. People have to be able to exist rather than kowtowing and tipping their hats to these people. That went on for long enough. These home-grown people are worse, getting away with it because of so-called education. They roll out their files and come along flashing their badges to tell people to get out of the river or the like when the people are trying to clean the bridges to stop the roads being taken away. It is futile and wasteful. They should be put to do meaningful work such as supporting and learning from the gun clubs, fishing clubs and the people who look after and preserve the mountains for the wild species that need them. They should be learning from them to get an understanding. They should be sent out to do that for a fortnight every year. Perhaps they could do it voluntarily as well, like the volunteers who already do this work after having paid their taxes and reared their families. It is farcical.

I am very concerned about these issues. We must have some common sense because the lunatics are running the asylum with all the regulations. I am not referring to this House. We pass good legislation and then we find it is not enacted for two years. However, the rules and guidelines these people want are pushed in overnight. We must have common sense and allow people to travel the roads with or without their mother or father in the car. I do not mind if they are restricted to certain times of the day and certain speed limits. All of us cannot be at home to drive our daughters and sons around and let the country collapse into oblivion. Who will pay these fat cats then? Is that the type of anarchy they want?

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