Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Acting Chairman.

Over the past number of years, we have had many discussions on climate action and low-carbon development. Time and again, we hear of action needing to be taken. While any self-respecting Deputy would know that climate action is of vital importance, action by this Fine Gael Government supported by Fianna Fáil has been minimal, to say the least, in the past few years.

When one sees ordinary farmers from rural Ireland having to fight for their rights in the courts after they have been severely fined by the Department for having scrub on their land, that in itself says it all. These fines were dished out to hundreds and hundreds of farmers in rural Ireland, and in particular west Cork, and they are still being pursued for having pure nature on their farms. Sadly, this had a totally wrong result, as it forced these honest farmers to rid their land of pure beauty and nature. In many cases, the only way this could be done was by burning the hills. A bad step, but a forced step.

I remember quite clearly a meeting I and other farmers had in Portlaoise with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine a number of years ago. We could not get it to understand or step back and stop forcing farms on these farmers in west Cork. I pleaded with it that if it did not step back, in the years to come it would be the cause of forcing innocent farmers to burn their ground against their will. Sadly, I was right.

As I said at the time, this was an attack on the people of rural Ireland. We know the chase of these people from rural Ireland is not going to change. When previous Governments could not get people away from rural Ireland by fining them, it is now going to be done with carbon tax. Families will pay hundreds, even thousands, of euro extra yearly. It is simply attacking those who live in rural Ireland. Carbon tax is a direct attack on rural Ireland. Since the publication of the programme for Government, I have been inundated by hundreds of people in west Cork asking me who in their right mind would support the attack on people who live in the constituency I live in in rural Ireland. This carbon tax may well be okay in urban Ireland, but not in rural Ireland, a place where public transport is almost non-existent. If this proposal is to go ahead, it will destroy agricultural contractors, our lorry and bus operators and everyone who has no choice but to use his or her car in rural Ireland. Of course, it is rural Ireland and it was secondary to the last Government. It looks like it is going to be no different this time and it may even be worse.

Time and again in the last Dáil, I called for removing the VAT from, or at least lowering the VAT, on all insulation products to encourage people to buy them and insulate their homes but no one listened. Instead, I heard a Fianna Fáil politician saying on television the other night that we will have to live without our fireplaces and without coal. What have we to replace this? Is it a candle in the corner? Is this all that is on offer? The millions of euro required to replace the fireplaces and coal will not be made available. Nobody in rural Ireland should be fooled that funding will be made available. It will not be. A huge number of my constituents are begging to get the retrofit carried out in their houses and are waiting 12 months or more. Warmer homes groups are starved of funds for years and years and announcement after announcement of millions of euro in the Dáil for retrofitting and for insulating people's homes have led to nothing on the ground for the ordinary people. This is where the Government's attention should be directed, not at penalising the people of west Cork or rural Ireland to pay for retrofitting our bigger cities by raising carbon tax to unacceptable levels. No right-minded rural Deputy will ever support this.

As I said earlier, no matter what climate action idea was presented to the last Government, it was never looked at. A proposal I put to the Taoiseach was taking cars off the road and running a park and ride bus scheme from Clonakilty. It was simple and a no-brainer. It needed a little work, with all of us working together, but sadly it was rejected. It was guaranteed to take dozens of cars off the road daily in west Cork and lead to lowering our carbon emissions and less stress on overstretched families who are forced to have two cars plus per house in rural Ireland. This would have accommodated people in Clonakilty, Ballineen, Bandon, Timoleague, Barryroe, Kilbrittain, Ballinagree, Kinsale and Innishannon, all the way back to Skibbereen and Bantry. To prove our research was right, when the State turned its back on this opportunity to lower our carbon emissions, a private operator, Dave Long Coach Travel in Skibbereen, started up this type of service from Skibbereen. Only for Covid, it was stretching this excellent service to Bantry, looking after the people from there to Cork and from the Beara, Mizen and Sheep's Head peninsulas.

Climate action should mean climate action, not climate attack on rural Ireland. My time as a Deputy so far, and it looks like the same going forward, has been given to policing the anti-rural stand which looks like continuing, leading to further hardship for families in my community. The Minister attacked democracy in this Dáil. We approved the extension of the burning season to rid us of illegal burning and to have proper legal, controlled burns in this country. After a majority in the Dáil committee and the Dáil approved it, the Minister struck it out by the stroke of a pen. As Deputy Verona Murphy said, it was the same with verge cutting.

See this speech in context