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

I too thank An Post for the great service it has given, and is still giving, right around the country. I hope that no more post offices will be closed down. I thank the local broadcasters, especially Radio Kerry. I also thank the local journalists.

I wish to highlight that there has been difficulty accessing Zoom meetings. It has been explained to me that it is a problem right around the country. It is not fair that people cannot link in. Remote working is the order of the day but in Kerry it is hardly possible at all because of the number of places that are without broadband coverage. As I explained to the Minister previously, there are pockets of coverage. There is fibre passing outside one man's gate who urgently needs it but there is no break in the line of fibre and the black box that is required is some 400 m or 500 m up the road. A black box covers 11 houses. We are told by Eir that National Broadband Ireland is going to do it and will be paid for it so Eir will not do it. There are pockets between Doocarrig and Beheenagh, between Gneevgullia and Kilcummin, Reaboy and Tooreencahill where various places have been left out. Children and farmers are expected to go online. This year, farmers were told they had to submit their single farm payment applications online. This was very tough on those who had to get someone else to do it for them. It is not fair that they had to do that.

Every minute of every day, someone is talking about climate and climate change. The one thing we are clear and sure on now is that it is not the farmer who is to blame.

They are farming away, but looking up at the sky, it can be seen that the planes are missing. One morning, on 21 August 2019 at 5.45 a.m., I looked out the door and up at the sky - 33 lines of jets passing overhead and a blue sky over that. When I went out ten minutes later, all the droppings from the planes had merged together. There was no sign of my blue sky - gone completely. In recent times, however, we have seen a blue sky as far as we can see on either end, and we are glad to see that. It is very easy, however, to blame the farmer or the poor man or woman going to work, or the hauliers are going through every hoop to deliver what they have to and who are penalised in every way, and now we are talking about increasing carbon tax. It is very easy to blame these people when, with emissions, really it is up we should be looking and not down.

I love our environment as much as anyone else, and seek to protect our rivers and our lakes in every way. Instead of talking about the climate, why do the Minister and the Government not talk about the treatment plants around the country? Take our county, for example. Kilcummin has been waiting for a treatment plant for 18 years, Castleisland has been waiting for an extension to a sewerage scheme for 33 years, and then there are places like Curragh, Scartaglin and Brosna. People cannot get permission there to build houses around the villages because there is no treatment plant, which only draws them into Killarney. The Government is to blame as much as farmers and other people for damaging our environment. It is a fact that the local authorities right around the country, not alone in Kerry, are to blame for the most pollution of our rivers, lakes, and indeed our bathing areas. Ballybunion and other places have gone from excellent to very good, or whatever, water quality. That is where we are going because the Government is not looking at the things it should be dealing with and putting money into them. Several Governments - the previous one and the one before - have let rural Ireland down when it comes to providing treatment plants and dealing with the environment, in our county anyway.

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