Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent) | Oireachtas source

-----about austerity and everything else but they have nothing constructive to add. Some socialists they are. We all must question that.

People are struggling. I have had meetings with farmers, hauliers and ordinary working people who are being hit hard. I can honestly say they are facing real hardship and I am asking the Government to please take action. I ask it to ensure some action is taken because it does not make sense to me or anybody else that Ireland has the highest electricity costs in the EU. That does not make sense. Much more could and should be done. There needs to be true leadership. The mistake the Government is making is that it is leaving people behind and that is a problem.

We all want to do our bit for the environment. Nobody is denying anything but we are saying that some of the solutions and actions being taken are ludicrous. A power station in Shannonbridge in my constituency closed down. Another closed in Lanesborough, County Longford. Those closures happened at a time when we needed those power stations. We are seeing inferior quality peat coming in from thousands of miles away, as far away as Latvia, and that is increasing our carbon footprint. It makes no sense. The Government is losing people who want to do the best by the environment and want real justice. All of those people are being left behind and are disillusioned.

I am asking for the Government to listen to what the people in the country are telling us. They are saying they cannot sustain the electricity or energy prices. It is not sustainable. We are going to lose many businesses. Some hauliers and farmers are at the brink at this point. We must do more. Ordinary families cannot afford these costs.

I am asking for action. Energy security and energy price fairness are issues of fundamental importance. If we are to assess the Government's intent by its actions rather than by its rhetoric, it would appear that energy blackouts and sky-high energy costs are a price it is willing to accept in pursuit of ridiculous policy objectives that bear no relation to reality. Those ridiculous policies include the importation of peat and briquettes into the country. It makes no sense because it increases the country's carbon footprint. The Government is putting people out of jobs and it is not good enough.

As the lights go out and businesses the length and breadth of the State receive more and more scheduled loss of power notifications from the ESB, this Government and the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, continue to act like the knight from the famous Monty Python sketch. The knight's arms and legs are gone but he insists on calling it a scratch. "Nothing to worry about", he says, as if there is nothing to see here. It would be funny if the matter were not so serious and if so many people in our State were not suffering. Indeed, the Minister is like the parent who, in all sincerity, would tell a child, "This is going to hurt me more than it is going to hurt you." That is not the case. Who does this Government think it is kidding? The people who are going to suffer the most from this energy crisis are the same people who have always suffered, whether from Government incompetence or from situations that require decisive action in favour of citizens. The Government is not taking decisive action. It will be the poorest who will suffer, those who cannot pay the estimated €56,000 for retrofitting, despite all the bloated promises around grants and financial support. We have already heard a number of times from Deputies, and I will say it too, that the waiting lists for grants from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland are too long. We are not getting to grips with that issue.

I represent peat harvesters and turf cutters. We are sacrificing an important part of Irish tradition without showing any regard for them or putting value on them. Those harvesters will continue to see their traditional lifestyles and livelihoods decimated. I again call out the importation of briquettes and peat. I call on the Minister to come into the House and explain why we have such a scenario when it is increasing our carbon footprint. It is all well and good for him to swan off to Glasgow or wherever he is. Our carbon footprint increases if we import peat. The Minister should come into the House and explain himself. It makes no sense whatsoever.

The Minister, in a press statement in September, stated that in order to accommodate those with rights to harvest sod peat, no ban on its burning will be introduced. Yet here we are, a little less than two months later, with a climate action plan that specifically targets the banning of coal and peat for residential use by 2030. We cannot believe a word this Government says because it is full of contradictions when it comes to protecting people's capacity to heat their homes in the way they see fit and are entitled to do, as the generations before them have done.

This is exactly what I have called the creeping criminalisation of people who want to burn turf and the turf cutters. I have been warning about this for some time. The plain reality is that the Climate Change Advisory Council and the Government are helicopter-dumping ideological nonsense all across rural Ireland with the full blessing of a complicit and grossly out-of-touch Government that does not have the first clue about how hard life is becoming.

When it came to the vote on the climate action Bill only ten Independent Deputies voted against it. That Bill condoned the carbon tax and the Climate Change Advisory Council, which devised carbon budgets and punished our farmers, as it continues to do. Let us not fool the people. Let us make it very clear only ten Independents, including me, opposed that Bill.

The members of the Climate Change Advisory Council, who are essentially acting as the Minister's personal cabinet, will not suffer. The people in this State who are unnecessarily suffering will continue to suffer because of these short-sighted and stupid policies. That is what they are. Some of them make no sense whatsoever. Some of us are increasingly starting to wonder who the real Taoiseach is in this Government. The Taoiseach, Deputy Michéal Martin, spoke last week about how he took it as a great compliment when somebody said he sounded like a member of the Green Party. That must have gone down very well with those in Fianna Fáil who lament the total collapse of the party's political identity. It ought to be as plain as the noses on our faces that the energy situation, as it currently stands, risks causing not only significant national damage but significant international damage to this country. This is a time when we need real statespeople to step up, show leadership and defend our people. Ordinary families and working people, and our farmers and hauliers, are being punished and it has to stop.

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