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

The Minister will not have time to answer me verbally, so I ask that she write to me with the answers.

First, I want to highlight the fact that Skellig Michael is closed. This has had a devastating effect on the entire locality around Ballinskelligs, The Glen, Portmagee and the entire area around Waterville and Cahersiveen. Boats and ferries licensed by the OPW are idle. Businesses are doing nothing and will do nothing even though the pubs and restaurants are supposed to open at the end of the month. I appeal to the Government to open Skellig Michael to visitors. Otherwise, the whole place will be closed and it will have a massive adverse effect. Will the Government to open Killarney National Park to the jarvies?

I want to highlight the fact there is much talk in the programme for Government about transport. Regarding the summer bus service, which operated twice daily from Killarney to places like Kenmare, Lauragh, Castletownbere, Glengariff and Sneem and around the Ring of Kerry, there has been an announcement today by Bus Éireann and CIÉ that it is no going to operate this summer. That is terrible for many people who look forward to that every year and it is not going to happen this year.

How much of the €25 million of the Minister's budget will be allocated to Killarney National Park? The State got 26,000 acres for nothing. It stayed open during the lockdown, which meant a lot to people, but it was very costly to keep it open.

I am very disappointed with Deputy Micheál Martin for what he has done to the people of north Kerry. He promised them during the election campaign that he would support Shannon LNG. He has turned now in order to become Taoiseach and to get support from the Green Party. He is going to shut it down and stop the company that has spent €70 million already on this project from spending more money, from creating 350 temporary jobs for three or four years while it was being built, and from creating 50 permanent jobs. That is what he has done to the people of north Kerry and I am very disappointed in him.

It looks that the whole debate on forming the Government has been about carbon and climate change and little else is being considered except how to get the support of the Green Party and to get it on side. This programme for Government is the Green Party's programme for Government. It is not the case of the Green Party joining Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil; it is Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael joining the Green Party. That is the way it is going. Rural Ireland is now set to pay, by way of carbon tax, for new shiny electric buses for Dublin and Cork, while services in Kerry, to the rural places I mentioned, will be closed down.

2 o’clock

I refer to the ratio of spending for capital projects. I have been highlighting here the need for the Killarney bypass to be put in place so that the town will not be choked and so that tourism in the town will not be ruined. It looks like there is no mention of that project in the programme for Government. I am glad the Macroom bypass has started because if it had not been started before now it looks like it would be shut down and stopped. Where is the Adare bypass now?

I am asking this incoming Government to consider what it is doing to the people of rural Ireland. It looks to me that this programme for Government will paralyse ordinary hardworking people by charging them as much as possible for carbon tax. It will drive the bag of coal up to €20 and for poor elderly people that is the only means they have for keeping themselves warm. It will drive petrol or diesel up to €2 per litre. People in rural Ireland need a reliable way of getting to work. Electric cars are not that at present. There is no place to plug them in and they will not go far enough. People have to travel long journeys to go to work. I appreciate the people who get out in the morning, travel long journeys, do a hard day's work, travel home again and do the same thing day after to day to keep bread on their tables. Those are the kind of people I support and am representing. It is fine to put €1 million per day into walkways and cycleways but they are for recreation. I do not begrudge them but we should not nail the hard-pressed people who are going to work. They are after getting a break for the last few months with the low price of diesel but sadly there were unable to go to work as there was no work to go to. It looks like they are going to be nailed by the incoming Government if it does get together.

I am calling it the Green Party Government because it is not a Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael Government. Those parties are badly letting down the people who traditionally supported them over the years. They are letting the ordinary working people down, such as the farmers and the businesses that are trying to employ people. They are letting the whole lot of them down in order to get power. That is what this is about. It is like the way they turned their backs on the people of north Kerry with Shannon LNG. Deputy Micheál Martin sincerely promised in the election campaign that he would support Shannon LNG but now he is shutting it down and stopping the company that is spending its own money and not Government money. That is what has been done.

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