Dáil debates

Wednesday, 16 June 2021

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Bill 2021: Report and Final Stages

 

5:22 pm

Photo of Michael Healy-RaeMichael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I really do not know where to start on this, although I will speak to the amendment. I was glad to have given something like seven hours last Wednesday to Committee Stage of this Bill, when we went through each of these amendments one by one. I was truly shocked and terribly disappointed by the Minister's statement that he does not care what amendments are brought forward, by whom or from what party or non-party, as it makes no real difference.

The Minister is saying to the Irish people tonight that it is the green way or no way. It is Eamon Ryan's way or nobody's way. The Minister wants this to be more like a dictatorship than anything else and that is wrong. He should act as a democrat and parliamentarian who takes on board other people's points of view and respects them. I, for one, have listened continuously to what the Minister and the Green Party want. I have seen how the Minister used his party's political muscle over Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, ensuring that because of the way seats fell in the last election it sees its opportunity. It is like a wasp, which does not care if it dies once it gets a final sting. The Minister does not care what happens in future to the Green Party; all he wants is to be able to say the party put in place a system that cannot be changed by future Governments or Ministers for Finance.

It is the same as the way he did away with Bord na Móna. The Minister left Dublin one day and went to the midlands so proud of himself for shutting down Bord na Móna. Bord na Móna was a great organisation and it built houses for its workers over the years. Families were reared on the backs of that great Bord na Móna organisation. The Minister was so ecstatic with himself when he announced the shutting down of Bord na Móna on one of the few occasions he has left Dublin in recent months.

I do not know how he could have that on his political CV. I do not know how he can be proud of the fact that today moss peat is coming into the North of Ireland for distribution around the country because we have stopped harvesting our own peat. How can he be proud of the fact we are no longer producing bales of briquettes here? Do not tell me we can still buy them.

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