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

I thank Sinn Féin, in particular Deputy Kerrane, for bringing forward this very important motion and giving us the first formal opportunity to discuss on the record of the Dáil the proposed criminalisation of the sale of turf for supply. One would swear to God it was some sort of an illegal drug the way we are talking about it. I never thought the sale and supply of turf would come to this. I would like the Minister to look around him. He was very welcome to Kerry this morning. I said it to him today and will say it again, any time a Minister comes to our county we welcome him or her with open arms.

The Minister should look around him. Where is the support for this? The backbenchers in Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil know that this will be their death knell and final nail in the coffin because they are losing rural Ireland. The Green Party does not come into this equation at all because this is about what Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are going to do. The only thing for them to do is to back the Sinn Féin motion and say that this will not be accepted in any shape or form. The people have had enough.

If the people who went before us heard us, as legislators, discussing this issue they would ask how it had come to this or ask what had gone wrong with our politicians. The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, is the Minister for reintroducing wolves to rural Ireland, shorter showers, car pooling and everyone walking or cycling to a village to get into a car that would not be there in the first place. He is a Minister who has his foot firmly placed in his mouth from early in the morning until late at night. At this stage, he and his party are an embarrassment to the environmental movement in Ireland. They are doing more harm than good.

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