Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

In a time of crisis, the Government has yet to fail us in coming up with ways to impose hardship on people. I listened last week to some of the people who got airtime to talk about burning wet turf. That is the same as pouring the pot of tea into the car and hoping it will run on it. That is the type of nonsense the Government has got airtime for. Then we heard about "mining" turf. That is as much as the Government knows about turf. It is as much as it knows about poverty. I spoke last week about people who count the number of briquettes in a bale. There are 22. The people were putting so many aside so they could heat their house in the way they could afford or to heat the water because they have no other fuel supply.

The biggest polluters in this country with regard to fuel are the local authorities. The biggest polluters in this country when it comes to sewage in our waterways are the local authorities. Who does the Government help all the time? It pumps money into the local authorities. When people want to build a house for themselves on their land, which they may have been left, in Limerick and other counties, they are charged €6,000 or €7,000. They must supply their own water and sewerage but if they do something wrong, they are fined. Despite this, the Government and local authorities are the biggest polluters and the Government is doing nothing about it. Again, who does it target? It targets the people in the counties who do not have any infrastructure such as gas lines.

The Government told the people it would give them €200 off an ESB bill. Why does the Minister of State not stand up here and tell them the truth? It gave them €200, less the 23% VAT which goes back into the Government's pockets. That is the truth. It could not even tell the people the truth about what it was going to give them at escalating prices. Everything that the Government does seems to be flawed and against people outside of towns and cities outside of Dublin. That is what it does. It is a city-based Cabinet. A total of 80% of the Cabinet is city-based. It does not understand Ireland outside of Dublin. There is no transport, sewerage or proper water supplies. It is a failure of this Government and previous Governments because we have no alternatives. If it wants people to change because of the environment, it should give us the alternatives.

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