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

My position on the unjust transition has been very clear ever since the process was announced. The reason I maintain that it is an unjust transition is that it is absolutely reckless to initiate and to escalate a process in the absence of basic alternatives. People have no alternatives in respect of jobs in the midlands. There are very few job creation opportunities there. I welcome the apprenticeships, but that is only one area and is long overdue. We are dictated to by the Government while it misses its own afforestation targets. I will take no lectures from any Government Deputy who comes in here. We are entitled to call this out on behalf of our constituents and to ask questions. If the Government does like it, tough. There are serious problems in the midlands and Laois-Offaly. There are very legitimate concerns. We hear about the fabled €84 million but not its delivery. Will the Government escalate the delivery in the same way it escalated the process? Will it escalate the job creation in the same way it escalated a very unjust process which is imposed on people? It is one thing the Government missing its own targets, but it then expects everybody else to dance to its tune without asking questions. We will continue to ask questions of the Government.

I was deeply alarmed today by a reply I received from the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine in respect of turbary rights. I had sought clarification from the Minister as to whether persons in possession of folio numbers for bog plots would have their turbary rights removed or infringed by the State, a private company or a semi-State company. I am alarmed by the tone and emphasis of the Minister's reply. It is just over two months since the Government almost tore itself apart on the very same issue. On a statutory basis, it has been absolutely clear since at least 1951 that turbary rights in respect of bogland mean the right to cut and to carry away turf from the bogland and include the right to prepare and to store on the bogland any turf cut therefrom. Now the Minister is unable or unwilling to provide basic assurances that all persons in possession of folio numbers for bog plots with associated turbary rights will have their rights protected. The Minister states in his reply to me that, as a general principle, it is a matter of settled law that private property rights are not absolute in nature and may be delimited in law. We need certainty and clarity on that. Rural people do not need this.

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