Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

We have all been passed this Earth to live on and we have to pass it to the next generation. We have a moral responsibility to hand the planet on to the next generation in at least as good a shape as we received it. Despite all the talk, virtue signalling and greenwashing of the past 15 or 20 years, though, this generation is the most damaging the planet has ever seen. That is an incredible thing to say, but it is true. We are living at a time of species mass extinctions, man-made global warming and unprecedented levels of ocean pollution.

Aontú is an environmentalist party because doing nothing is a significant threat to our lives, incomes and futures and the world's habitats, on which we all depend. It is possible to decouple economic growth from the increase in global carbon emissions. This can be done in a number of ways. Ireland imports a significant amount of energy, most of it in the form of fossil fuel. That is incredible, given our country is ideally placed to create sustainable energy, thereby reducing imports, making money circulate in Ireland and adding to the positive sustainable development of our environment. The people who are probably most targeted by the Bill - farmers - are ideally placed to provide most of this energy. Energy should be seen as a crop and as a way of ensuring we can increase farmers' incomes by €5,000, €6,000 or €7,000 per year. If we developed our approach to climate policy in this manner, we would be able to bring people with us instead of creating widespread opposition to our efforts.

I have a problem with an incredible situation, that being there are no solar panels in the State connected to the grid. I welcome that the Green Party has been instrumental in creating an auction process that will soon remedy this situation. From March to September, Britain will create more energy from solar energy than it will from coal and nuclear at the same time. We do not have microgeneration of energy. Even with the Government's auction process, the idea of small-scale wind, solar and biodigestion that can be used by farmers is still out of the reach of most farmers who are in need of an income increase. It does not have to be this way. In the North of Ireland, the roof of one out of every three houses is festooned with photovoltaic panels, creating electricity for that home and earning its family an income. I find it difficult to believe we are not starting with the low-hanging fruit and positive opportunities that could and should be approached by the Government.

The energy efficiency of our buildings presents another incredible situation. Every year, governments fly flags about having done X amount of retrofitting of homes and public buildings with insulation.

All those projects are only scratching the surface. If we want to reduce energy consumption, the first thing we need to do is to stop wasting that energy. Stop wasting that energy means insulating and properly protecting buildings and homes. Doing that will save the money of the people living in those homes and make those homes more comfortable, warmer and healthier places for them to live. The same applies to public buildings. However, there has never been a real project trying to ensure that buildings are properly insulated and efficient. That needs to be done before we start to look at other sections of society.

One of the difficulties I have with this Bill and the Government's approach is that it is being built on the backs of the sectors of society that can least afford more pain at the moment. It is very seldom recognised in this Chamber that the farmers of this country are absolutely stuffed. There are about 130,000 farmers in the State and year after year farmers are selling up and getting out because their incomes are already a pittance.

For example, in beef sector, only for European intervention in the form of grants, after their full week's work, farmers would earn a minus figure. Imagine asking tens of thousands of workers and their families to engage in a sector that produces a minus figure at the end of the year. That is an incredible situation and it is wrong to treat any sector of society that way.

The beef sector is an enormously profitable sector in its own right. Hundreds of millions of euro in profits are made in the beef sector. There are three elements of the supply chain: the producers, the factories and the supermarkets. However, the profits reside with the factories and the supermarkets at enormous cost to the producers, the farmers. This is allowed to happen because it is a dysfunctional market. In economic terms, it is known as an oligopoly with enormous buyer power. The factories can dictate every element of farmers' engagement with them. The Government has stood idly by in every case.

In the last Dáil, I sat on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and Marine where the Fine Gael Chair said it was unreasonable for farmers to expect a price for their beef above the cost of production. That was a startling and astonishing attitude by the Government. We have seen no change at all. We now hear that the Government is considering reducing the national herd. The Government cannot propose reducing the national herd without increasing the unit price of farmers' product so that it provides a living for them. Farmers will simply not buy any reduction in the national herd that does not include a fair income for a fair day's work for them. It is important for the Government to get real.

It also needs to get real in respect of the needs of rural areas, where the population is dwindling. The average age of people in Killarney is 40. The average age in Balbriggan is 30. A vicious circle is happening. When students leave college, the only place they can get graduate jobs is in or around Dublin. They cannot afford to live in Dublin and so live in the sprawling commuter belt, which, in itself, is a threat to the environmental health of the country. They move away from the communities they grew up in. This approach by the Government damages rural areas by not providing sustainable ways for people to live there, including sustainable transportation. This means the Government will not bring people from rural areas with it either.

I do not want to see this approach - an approach that is necessary for fixing the country's disastrous environmental record - built on the back of sectors of society already in severe trouble. I ask the Government to go back to the drawing board and come up with a solution that includes all of Ireland, and that has a future for farmers and those living in rural areas. It needs to turn the country, not into a sprawling commuter belt of Dublin, but into viable communities where people can work in remote working hubs and in their own homes.

Over the bank holiday weekend, I was out and about in my constituency, talking to families. It is an incredible situation. Based on the national broadband plan, people living two or three miles outside of Navan, Trim and other towns in my constituency have no chance of getting broadband for the next two or three years. I am reminded that Noel Dempsey promised them broadband in 2004 and a further two or three years is probably optimistic at the rate that this Government goes. The Government needs to ensure it brings all of Ireland with it. It should not build a process on the back of the misery of those in rural areas.

I wish to raise one other matter with the Minister of State, which is the issue of local citizens who have been campaigning against companies which are breaking the law on the environment regarding quarries. Companies are slapping legal cases against these individuals, tying them up in terms of money, energy and time. It has a chilling effect in respect of public participation in their own environments. Article 3.8 of the Aarhus Convention states that every citizen should be able to exercise their rights in conformity with the law without being penalised, persecuted or harassed in any way. Will the Minister of State meet people in my community to discuss this issue to ensure that Article 3.8 of the Aarhus Convention is brought into law?

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