Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has been speaking in a sort of conciliatory tone but the bottom line is that he is saying ask for help and we will all work together. That is basically what he is saying. However, he is not working with us. He has his mind made up. As I said to him, I met with the climate action groups in west County Cork on numerous occasions. This is a huge insult to them, forget about me as an elected representative. The Minister has decided that the decent amendments put forward by elected representatives were not fit to be read or accepted in any way, no matter what. These people put forward ideas to me and I worked with them. I put forward some of those ideas as amendments, and others from other organisations, such as farming organisations, but the Minister has rejected the whole lot of them. That is an insult to those climate action people in west County Cork. I will go back and apologise. I do not know who I will be apologising for. I cannot apologise on my own behalf because I have done exactly what they asked me to do.

Deputy Mattie McGrath asked the Minister to listen to the people and I am asking him to do the very same thing. He should listen to the people who have no public transport, the people who have no or poor school transport, the people who have poor rural transport. He should listen to young people who cannot get planning permission in their own farms at home. He should listen to the people who are subject to carbon tax and who are hit most by it; they are mostly from rural Ireland. He should listen to the farmers who are hurt the most. The Minister has schemes. We were talking about schemes here. I am worn out with eco schemes and dream schemes. We also have an organic scheme. The Minister has been in government twice and that organic scheme is an absolute disaster. To think the Government is looking at another dream scheme when it already has an existing good environmental scheme and it cannot further it beyond what it is. I am asking the Minister to look at this.

We need to be looking at towns and villages and plenty of places in west County Cork, including Castletownshend and Goleen, where raw sewage is going into the tide. This climate action Bill is not going act as a deterrent here. The Minister is being asked to accept our amendments and we have been very genuine in putting them forward. I ask him to reconsider that. He should not insult the people, who are basically from his own party, and from his own support group in west County Cork and throughout the country, by rejecting every one of these amendments.

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