Dáil debates

Wednesday, 27 April 2022

Carbon Tax: Motion [Private Members]

 

11:47 am

Photo of Mattie McGrathMattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I see Deputy Canney, but there is not one backbencher and, look here, féach anseo, Sinn Féin is missing in action. God, their Members will all be here in ten minutes' time. I am sorry for invoking the name of God, but I cannot believe it. We then have some people telling us we should mine turf. I, or any of us, do not profess to know everything, but we know that turf is not mined. We get lectures from people in white vans about what we should do regarding liquefied natural gas and everything else. That is fair enough, but I say to the Minister of State that this appalling vista has a sense of déjà vufor me and for him. He is a member of a proud party and was in the same fine room as me, on the fifth floor, full of Deputies, Ministers and Senators, with the then Minister for the environment, John Gormley, and then Taoiseach, Brian Cowen. I think Deputy Byrne chaired this meeting where we spent two hours discussing - excuse the language - when a breeding bitch would be a breeding bitch. That is the déjà vu. That was the last time I walked out of that parliamentary room because I knew the whole thing was gone loo-lah. We are back there again.

I know there is awful trouble in the Minister of State's party. There is worse trouble in Fine Gael. The Tánaiste likes to be flippant and tell them all that taking turf off the people is like taking wine off the people. It is a sexy kind of talk. It is nice and emotive and everything else. The Ceann Comhairle said to ask him about it when he comes back to the Chamber. We will ask him, but when we left the Chamber two weeks ago there was only a rumpus about turf. However, members of the Government are all forgetting one thing. This measure from the Minister, Deputy Ryan, is in the big book, the leabhar. It is in the programme for Government. Members of the Government stuck to it, they are welded to it and they have to honour it. The Taoiseach said, in Geneva or someplace - it was not in Cork, Kerry or a bog and I suggested he was lost in a fog in a deep bog - that this would all be smoothed over and he would do whatever. There are rumours he is now doing a secret deal with the Green Party and forgetting Fine Gael.

Deputy Berry is in the Chair so I cannot comment on him, but I cannot forget the Regional Independents who consistently vote in this Chamber. They are not Independents. They are Fine Gael backbenchers who consistently vote for every measure, but the measures today are hurting the people. The Minister of State knows this more than anyone. He is from the midlands, which is the place he talked about in respect of just transition. It is the most unjust transition and imposition that was ever dreamed of. It must be some of the 36,000 NGOs the Government has now, costing €5 billion a year, that come up with these lovely acronyms and lovely names, such as "just transition". It is the most unjust, regressive, punitive legislation. Why? There are no alternatives. People are frozen in their homes because they cannot go to the bog.

Easter Sunday was the day, and Easter was late this year, to be anxious about it. People headed for the bog on Easter Monday morning. They always observed the Sabbath as most in rural Ireland still do. They went off to the bog with their flask of tea and, my God, they would have a sore back and would be sore in many places after cutting the turf for the day with the sleán and throwing it on the bank. Thankfully, machines can come in, cut it and leave it out for them without people having to go out to turn it. It was a family event that was part of our heritage, our dúchas, our beliefs and what we lived for. It also sustained us and we had the meitheal spirit to help each other. I remember there were often ten men with a tractor and trailer who went to Monaincha Bog. There were also women. It was equal opportunities. They loaded the turf in bags and double trailers, brought it home, had a fine feed of bacon and cabbage, a drop for the road, maybe a bag or two of turf for the driver of the tractor, and they gave stuff to their neighbours. It is more important to the people of rural Ireland than wine, which is an elite drink. The Taoiseach waxed lyrical recently about wine being like the berries. I do not know what he said, but he then said that whiskey tasted more like bog. You would know he never stood in a turf-cutting position with a sleán, or took turf in a wheelbarrow out across the bog, or he would know well the taste of the cold tea he would have had and the sandwiches that might have gone stale. He would have had that and earned it.

A trip back to the bog is what the members of the Government all need now and a trip back to rural Ireland, which they profess to represent. They need a trip to the feirmeacha beaga, the small farms, and the small industries. The microgeneration industry was mentioned by the Deputy across the floor of the House. People and families in good faith put up mini-turbines and solar panels. They are supporting the ESB by selling back to the grid but it has been robbed from them because they are not getting paid for it. There is no sign of legislation that will deal with this. What kind of bad taste and bad incentive is that?

There are so many other things I could say but the NGOs have plundered this country and the Government is talking about bringing in a carbon tax. I have the figure for last year, which was €670 million, of which €126 million was spent on climate actions. Where is the other €500 million-odd going? It is a con job. It is a three-card trick. The ducking and diving backbenchers are doing is such that the Garda sub-aqua team could recruit a pile of them. They go down so deep so fast and come up again while consistently stating they are all against the carbon tax and the rising price of diesel. If they do not make the Garda sub-aqua team, for other reasons they should go in for Olympic deep diving and swimming, because I never saw the like of it. There is a huge sense of déjà vu- I can sense it - where the Government at the time imploded with the Green Party. I said at the front gates of Leinster House - I was stopped going out one evening because I was kind of angsty - that the next thing it would try to stop is the cat chasing the mouse. It is coming to that. It is utter folly. Members of the Government should not go away for two weeks' break because the Minister, Deputy Ryan, gets these ideas. I have personal respect for the man and have had good conversations with him, but he comes up with these utopian ideas and it is only driving a wedge among the people. Ní neart go chur le chéile. I want to bring people with us. It is not all a big bata or stick such as the old schoolmasters had. The Government must bring the people with it using a carrot and stick.

We need to get real and we need to get support. The Rural Independent Group is consistent. Other Teachtaí Dála will come in and out of the Chamber and say they are for it and everything else, but they have all been indoctrinated by the army of NGOs we have now. It is said we have no army and we have not; we have an army of NGOs. There are some very good people but there are 36,000 NGOs, costing €5 billion annually. We always had NGOs. When I was a buachaill óg, women and men in the missions went all over the world and did work in Third World countries, bringing water schemes to water parts of Africa and God knows where, including Biafra which was sold out to the Middle East. All the different magazines state there were cynical aims to those missions, but they did not cost €5 billion. They got nothing but dedicated their lives to that work.

All the Irish people want now is to live out their lives in a modicum of peace, not be perished in their houses, and not be frightened about the turf police that will come along. Most of the police I know do not have squat because they do not have the numbers in the Garda. We are picking things out of our heads so that we might have this or that. We will now have a limit on the population, so we will not be able to move from one village to the next village because a population of under 500 will be needed to burn the turf. Did you ever hear the like of it? The lunatics are definitely running the asylum when we hear these kinds of statements. It is not a plan; it is regulations with new consultation.

The people of Tipperary, west Waterford, and into north Tipperary and such places are in the bog already cutting the turf for this winter. The Minister of State knows that; he is close enough to see them. They are hoping to go out to turn it out in two weeks' time, and to turn it again two weeks after that to dry it. An expert stated on an RTÉ programme last week that we are all burning wet turf. I can tell the Minister of State that a gallon of petrol would not burn one sod of wet turf. What will the Fianna Fáil leader do when he goes back to his parishes? Previously, people all went back with pitchforks and the lighted sod of turf. I know what to do with that sod of turf. It will not be up on pitchforks but someplace else. The Government is scorching the people, they are really hurting and they are sick and tired of it. Tá sé in am do scoitheadh an Rialtas sin. It is time to call an election.

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