Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, is a decent man. Tháinig a sheanathair ó Tiobraid Árann - The Caravansary used to be a pub. The Minister has great roots in the country. Anything I say to him is nothing personal. It is merely fundamentally opposed to what is happening in this Bill.

This rushed legislation had very little pre-legislative scrutiny and a kind of a mad feverish element. One day last year in the Dáil, I think, a Thursday evening, many of us had gone home when the Dáil decided that we should have this climate Bill and all parties and none signed up to it. They were trying to beat one another as to who would be the strongest and who would be in the clique. This is the social media. This is media-driven as well and nobody is standing back to question it.

I thank the hardworking staff in my office, Mairéad McGrath and, indeed, Brian Ó Domhnaill, for doing such huge work on the amendments. It is very disappointing when Deputies Nolan, Michael Collins and Michael Healy-Rae attended the committee. Last week, we were berated for not attending but I will also say - I do not want to blame the secretariat - we were not even notified of the committee. We had a call from a journalist - Brian Ó Domhnaill did - to know why we were not there. We were not even notified of it. There is some clandestine kind of a secret incremental issue going on here - shut those lads up, get it off, get it passed, do not accept any of their amendments, leave it off, we have to do this and to hell with the consequences.

I am speaking to amendments Nos. 1 to 3, inclusive, and amendment No. 1 on specifying "a just transition", because it is not a just transition. It is a most unjust imposition. That is what it is. The con of those words is really stretching the credibility of the Bill and the people who came up with these words, names and acronyms. It is not fair. It is not right. It is unfair to the English language. Today, we are celebrating one of our famous poets and authors here in Dublin. It is an unjust transition. It is an unjust imposition. Tell that to the people who Deputy Nolan represents on the bogs of Offaly.

EirGrid, the operator of the transmission system, announced amber alerts about the supply of electricity on the national grid on 11 September 2020, 6 January 2021 and 27 May 2021. We trust it with managing power. When I was on the communications committee back in 2007, 2008 or 2009 and the Minister was the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, we went out to EirGrid and we saw a fascinating project. I was amazed by the sheer scale of it. The amber alerts should be a wake-up call for the Minister, who is trying to stop the power plants. Those were only three alerts. There was a brown alert in November. We have also had power cuts. I have received approximately ten phone calls in recent weeks. There was one last Sunday week about a power outage in the town of Cahir. There was no explanation or anything about it on the website. Highly expensive catering equipment was damaged because of the outage, which happened without warning. That can happen. For example, there can be accidents and swans often hit the lines and so on, as happened in my village, but this was more serious. When will we take the wool from our eyes, open them up and see?

I have a message for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael's backbenchers and the Independent Deputies who back the Government. If they vote this Bill through and then try to tell the people of Tipperary and everywhere else in the country that they did not realise what it was and they had to do it because it was in the programme for Government, it will not wash when people are in the dark and going around with candles and flashlights like the Peep o' Day Boys to find something in their kitchens or elsewhere in their houses. We cannot get generators. Timber cannot be sold for houses. There is the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI. We had a Tipperary energy agency, something I was proud of, but it has been subsumed into a large conglomerate and taken away from local control. People must wait two or two and a half years when applying for a grant for insulation. One of our amendments would reduce the VAT rate on insulation. All of the policies that the Minister has passed, including the carbon tax, have driven the price of insulation upwards because it is oil based. They have driven the price of timber up by 100% and steel up by 60%, meaning that the cost of housing people has gone through the roof.

The issue of farmers has been mentioned. Farmers and farming organisations are being blamed and demonised. I like Deputy Cairns. I heard what she said and was pleased with it. No farmer gets up to do any damage to the environment. Farmers are the custodians of the environment. They have eked a living out of it. My ancestors did so, as did the Minister's on that humble farm at The Caravansary in Tipperary. If he looks at his shoes closely enough, he will see that they still have clay on them. He is a bit removed from Tipperary but I ask him to please feel the clay and the passion of the earth. Remember the Famine. We are going to create another famine because of food shortages and no light. We will be back living prehistoric lives if this nonsense happens.

Renewable heat fuels obligation, RHO, schemes allow industry to advance competitive decarbonisation solutions for heat sectors, supporting indigenous sources without burdening Exchequer funding. The Minister never considered these. In France, biomethane will be the most competitive solution, allowing manufacturing and export industries to address their main issues while providing new income for farmers, turning perceived emission and waste issues into an opportunity. Why do we not do this? Why is there a rush and indecent haste? Any legislation that is rushed will have flaws, and this legislation is deeply flawed.

Why does the Government not discuss the Bill with farming organisations? Many organisations have come to me and my group, the Rural Independent Group. Some did so very late in the day. The IFA came here today. It was probably a year late. I do not know whether it has bought into this, but it will have a realisation when there is no power for its farmers' milking machines. How will they have tractors and everything else? The IFA actually criticised us for scaremongering about the national herd but that came from Professor John FitzGerald and many other independent people who said that we could not achieve what we wanted to by 2030 without culling the herd. We saw the two lovely animals with the IFA today. Let the farmers live.

I appeal to the Minister to remove the guillotine from this Bill and give us time to debate it. Engage with people. He is driving the people who are interested in climate change and a just transition away from him. A spoon of honey is better than a bucket of vinegar. Will the Minister please get out the honey and try to bring people with him instead of forcing them? I am surprised. We have had a tyrannical 15 months with Covid and this is a further tyranny. The climate change Bill is the new red. Green is the new red. It is a form of communism. It wants people to be cold in their homes and workplaces. It is making people little and back into what they were in prehistoric times. It is shameful, it is downright stupid and it is not necessary.

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