Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I offer my sincere thanks to Deputy Pringle for his hard work in bringing forward this motion. It is very timely because this is a three-card trick as far as I am concerned. I am from the Golden Vale and proud of it. I will declare an interest. I happen to own land with lots of heather on it, which was reclaimed by my forefathers. They earned their living from it and fought for freedom in respect of it. Now, the right to farm that land is being taken from people. We do not know what is going on here. One would want to be up night and day watching the Green Party and what it is up to with the statements it makes and the way it has hoodwinked Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. It is a shocking con job. This derogation, mar dhea, is a con job. The derogation might be there and gone again. This is a three-card trick.

Where is the IFA? There is not a word out of it because it is supporting the big farmers who have the big CAP payments. We always wanted a fair and just transition for smaller farmers to support them, but there is not a peep out of the IFA. There is not a peep out of it either about the so-called Green Party carbon emissions Bill, another sleazy deal done with Government by this big organisation and others. I salute the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Organisation, Luke 'Ming' Flanagan in the European Parliament and other individuals who are awake to this three-card trick going on to fool people and get them off the land.

Cromwell came to Clonmel. We kept him out of it for about two weeks and he failed to get in. This Government, which is now in the shape of Green monsters, is creeping around everywhere. The Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Senator Pippa Hackett, will not allow people with forests to cut them down. That is the blackguarding of people that is going on.

I salute Deputy Verona Murphy for what she said. This fancy scheme should be tried out with the Secretary General and officials who are always breathing down on the people who want to work and use the land, who want to have the land and air that God gave them, and have produce growing on it, carefully, while nurturing the environment. We want to keep our farms and live on the mountains beside the heather and not be driven to hell or to Connacht, which is the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan's point of view.

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