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

That is to be welcomed.

We have lessons to learn, and when I say “we” I mean all of us, as to how we go about securing permission from farmers when we want to do a project. There is a great difference between going to a landowner in one way as opposed to another. There was a very nice man in the place where I come from and he said it is all about how one approaches a thing. There is a great deal to be said for that. Those were very wise words. No matter what one is at in life, it all depends on how one goes about it. Unfortunately, there were a great number of lessons for us all to learn. I am not pointing the finger of blame at any one person or to any organisation but the legal complications that ensued were most unfortunate.

There is no point in life if, when we are so busy going forward, you look behind yourself and will fall over what is in front of you. We must look forward and that is what I will be looking to do in County Kerry. I hope now again that the Cabinet, where there is money already in the kitty, will provide additional funds which will be greatly needed. The Green Party is shouting all the time about greenways and walkways. Now is the time then for it to put its money where its mouth is to ensure that we will be putting funds there, on top of the funds that are there already, to start and complete the project and the job of work in a timely fashion. I am looking forward to as many people from Kerry being employed there as possible because the Iveragh Peninsula is so devoid of employment at the moment. It would be an economic boost in construction and a great economic boost afterwards to go from Mountain Stage on through Kells and down into Cahirsiveen. It will be a great lift for that entire region, be it going down to Ballinskelligs, Portmagee and Valentia Island and across all of that area. We will all benefit from the greenway which I welcome.

I come back to the obstacles that are put in the way of business. One of the biggest problems that we have at the moment in all types of businesses is the energy costs. It is laughable when I hear the Government saying that it recognises now that there is a problem. Of course there is a problem but who caused the problem only the Government? The Government, on the one hand is going ahead, gung-ho, in imposing carbon budgets and taxes on top of other ordinary taxes and increases. At the same time it is telling the people that it will hit and hurt them this way, but that it must try to devise a way to help and assist the people in another way. In other words, we must try to give the people some of their own money back. That is crazy. We should be ensuring that we have a surety of electricity supply in this country which we do not have at present. We are going to be overly reliant on England and France and we will finish up buying it from them because we have shut down Bord na Móna and ensured that those stations were closed.

At the same time, if one then looks at Moneypoint and Tarbert, they were shut because of the Green Party but in spite of that party they were opened again and the reason for this was if they were not, there is a great possibility that we would be here in the dark with a candle. That is a fact. This is a stark fact and it is one that the Green Party Members hate to be reminded of but I will remind them of it over and over again.

I will also remind them that last night it was very upsetting to hear a Minister coming out to say that it was great that we were going to give the people €25,000 of a grant while at the same time telling them that it will cost between €50,000 and €55,000 to do this job. The Government was saying that it will give a grant of €25,000 to people who have trouble paying their ESB bills, heating their homes and educating their families because money is so scarce in family homes at present.

I want to give a reminder to the Government at a time when it is topical to ask if the Government is in touch or out of touch.

I hold 40 to 50 clinics every month in rural areas and in the larger towns and centres of population in County Kerry. I like to think I am acutely attuned to what is happening in family homes and the pressures that are on families at present post pandemic, the financial constraints on them and the ever-increasing costs of just living. They go to the petrol station where previously €55 or €60 would fill the car but now it costs way over €100. That is a fact. It is costing €104 to €108 to fill the average car. I never thought I would see that happen, and it is getting worse. Consider what a person is paying for electricity. If the electricity bill was €100 previously, there is no problem in saying that the bill is now over €200. That is the reality. There is the cost of medical care and the cost of basics such as education - sending young lads out to school, packing their bags with their lunches, buying their books and sending them on their way. It is ordinary, daily living. When we talk about competition and living in Ireland, we must remember those facts. They are sore and hard facts of life.

I want to remind the Minister of State of another matter, and it is very upsetting. Take the example of people who have a small shop. In the past the shop supplied the needs of the local schools. Let us say there were a couple of big schools in the area. Those people, who were providing local employment, are now being faced with the problem that the schools are being told they can only deal with bigger organisations. In other words, the stuff will arrive in a van from Dublin to the school in the rural area, instead of from the local shop that was supplying such goods to the school and giving local employment. We are losing that connectivity, and it is a problem. I use that as an example. These are stationery stores, people who supply schoolbooks and the like. They are finding things extremely difficult because they are being debarred.

There is the same type of situation with the HSE. If there is a hospital in a community, the one thing the hospital should be doing is trying to procure and source all goods it can locally. Obviously, we want local people to get employment in the hospital, but we also want the services and the day-to-day supplies that are needed in the hospital. It is only good business sense that we support local and shop local. I do not mind giving a little bit of a rub when I see these international groups coming here - obviously, I would be too polite to name them - and hear them boast about creating so many jobs because they are opening this shop here and that shop there. These are people who would not even bank their money in Ireland; they take their money abroad to bank it, for fear something would happen it here. When those people are boasting about the jobs they are creating, they never mention the jobs they are displacing. They never say how many shops they have closed in a locality. It is similar to a petrol station, for example. When we see one being established with a shiny new place, nothing is said about all the places that had to close to make way for it. I have seen that happening.

I again thank and greatly support the small family businesses that take on the conglomerates and the big multinational groups that come here just to profit here and take their money and everything they can out of the country. It is like what we saw happening with the Debenhams workers in Tralee. It is all about coming in with a smash-and-grab effect. I am not talking about the business I just mentioned. I referred to Debenhams in the context that I felt the workers were treated so badly. In broad terms, I am talking about businesses that come here just to make what they can and go away with it. Compare that with the small family business that has been in the area perhaps for decades. It is there for years, and we see the generations - the older people, the present family and the younger people coming up - carrying on the business, whether it is a pub, a hotel, a shop, a plant hire business or a small building contractor.

Those people have a thing in their blood that the big businesses do not know about. I will explain. It is the blood that is running through their veins; the business is in their blood. The ability to survive is in their blood. The ability to make a couple of pounds, survive and just plod along is in their blood. That cannot be bought; it cannot be made. It is the spirit of resilience. That is the Irish spirit of fighting on the flat of one's back. When everything goes wrong and people are down and everything is down on top of them, they rise out of the ashes, take it on and fight on again to live another day. Some of the best friends I had and some of the best business people I ever knew went broke. They went broke possibly twice or three times. However, every time they went down, as sure as they went down they came back up again, and they came back up bigger, better and stronger. They plodded along. What else did they do? They created local employment again.

I think of all those business people, past and present and hopefully in future generations. We, as legislators, and today's Government are only all on a wheel. We are only here for a while. We must ensure that those businesses will be nurtured and looked after, and that everything that can be done to keep them rolling along will be done. We need not be too worried about the big conglomerates because they can mind themselves, but we must mind our local businesses because they are so important. That is the message I send from the House tonight.

See this speech in context