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

When the Minister suggested I was causing an urban-rural divide because I mentioned it, her argument was extraordinarily weak. I stated the obvious about what has been going on in this House. People who live on farms, or who are farming contractors like Deputy Mattie McGrath, contractors on land and roads like Deputies Michael and Danny Healy-Rae, or other contractors like Deputy Michael Collins, argue with us on the basis that we do not understand what we are talking about. They keep saying we have no idea what it is like and Deputy Fitzmaurice thinks we have never gone down the country. This has come from the way the Bill has been constructed and that is what I am saying about the Minister. She is not so much using urban-versus-rural language as constructing a Bill that causes people to argue with people on a completely false basis. If she really wanted to deal with overgrowing hedgerows and the dangers on tertiary roads where the small clever birds live, as opposed to the major roads where the stupid birds live, as was discussed yesterday, and if she wants to deals with the problems that arise from overgrowth, both in cities and in the countryside, she would fund the local authorities to do those things in a regulated way. Local authority funding has been slashed and burned for the past ten years and they do not have the resources or the staff to carry out this sort of work. The Minister says it is nothing to do with her Department but that is not a good enough answer. My thesis is that if one funds one Department properly, the other would not have to put through this slash-and-burn Bill. The Minister is in a Cabinet; surely we deserve joined-up thinking from the Cabinet that runs the country.

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