Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

When I saw the Bill and researched it, I too stated it was feeble and inept. We are now discussing it and we have fallen at the first hurdle. A total of 102 amendments were tabled in the Seanad but the Minister of State rejected them all. The Government is not serious about this Bill. There is no timeline provided in the Bill and it will be unworkable without one. Deputy Boyd Barrett and I raised the fact in the House yesterday and at the Business Committee last week that we are not being given enough time to debate the Bill. We still do not have enough time to debate it. We did not have enough time to submit amendments. There was no pre-legislative scrutiny or anything else.

Deputy Boyd Barrett and I are coming at the matter from different sides. I do not know if he every wielded an axe or drove a mallet or tried to start a chainsaw, but I doubt he did. I have nothing against him. There are so many problems here in Dublin such as oil spillages and raw sewage going into the water supply. The Government is now trying to bring water from Tipperary up to a pipework system that leaks 58% of the water in it. Sewage and oil and other bad substances are going into the water supply. They are being killed just to try to treat it. The whole thing is bananas.

The Minister of State and the Minister are in the Chamber. It is their time, as Deputy Danny Healy-Rae stated. I wished the Minister of State well earlier. She will be looking at a timeline of the Green Party being banished again from government when the next election comes. It might not take long. The Green Party was banished before because it got caught up in silly things instead of looking after people's lives and livelihoods and allowing them to live.

In fairness to Deputy Boyd Barrett, he stated that I and my colleagues in the Rural Independent Group have helped him to educate himself on these issues. I do not know things about Dublin that he knows, such as the story of Mrs. O'Connor and the expert who was brought in 150 years ago. I asked him whether they are alive but they have been dead for 150 years or 160 years. Tá siad imithe, like the snow on the Galtee Mountains.

This is so sad. The Government has no intention of making this work.

The Minister of State is pandering to her own supporters, many of whom are there. One of them, I found out today, is a serial objector. I think he is from my own town. God knows, we went to the same secondary school. I am not saying he is not qualified; he is. We must have common sense but common sense has gone out the window. That is the problem with the Minister of State and the Green Party. The last time the Green Party was in power it destroyed coursing and anything to do with rural pursuits. What have they got against rural Ireland? We want to live. As Deputy Danny Healy-Rae has stated, we do not have gold and silver but we have forestry and agriculture. We have arable land. I am from the Golden Vale, with some of the best land in the country, but we have the mountain that need to be planted and used as well.

Above all, we cannot build and sort out our housing crisis in any way if we have not the timber to make the roofs. We cannot make them with rushes or bloody thatch like they had 200 years ago. The Minister of State would love to be telling us to have all that crack. She will not let us do that either or give us a decent grant to repair the thatched roofs we have. What the Minister of State is doing with the Green Party here is poppycock. It is nonsense. It is patent blackguarding.

The Minister, Deputy McConalogue, is sitting behind the Minister of State, his colleagues will come in here and speak like we are speaking but then they will support the Minister of State. It is a downright double act committing fraud on the people, telling them they will do one thing and then supporting this nonsense of a Bill. It is a waste of time. As Deputy Fitzmaurice said, we might as well go home now and forget about it because the Government has no interest in sorting it out.

If one has not a deadline on anything, one is going nowhere. One must have a deadline. There are deadlines for amendments. There are deadlines for speaking time here. There are deadlines for everything. For anything we do in the country for all the other crops, there are deadlines. There are deadlines for planning. There is nothing for this. That goes to show that the Minister of State will not accept a reasonable deadline. I am not saying one should not give people the time. There are forest improvement scheme, FIS, grants, environmental impact studies and God knows what.

The Minister of State is only trying to cod us but she is codding herself. It is herself she is harming. The Green Party will be banished from Government again. They will come back in ten years' time again and produce another programme for Government with some other fellows who are willing to take them in. They do not understand. The Minister of State is a farmer from rural Ireland. While I do not know the density of forestry in County Offaly, I believe they have a fair bit of it and the Minister of State should understand this. The backlogs are there for all the harvesters, all the fellows with the replanting, the forwarders, the hauliers and the mills. Above all, one will not have the finished product for one's presses, wardrobes or anything, or even the roof.

Where are we going? Kindergarten children would not come up with this kind of baloney. It is merely an effort to let on that the Minister of State is doing something and to fool the people. The Minister of State is fooling no one. Someone said they cannot see the wood for the trees. The Minister of State is not codding anyone. This is shameful.

See this speech in context