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

The Government misled the people of Ireland, like the Green Party is misleading everyone in this country. People from the Green Party are now coming to me to tell me they cannot understand what the Government is doing. They have a green agenda, but they know that now they have to live for their families. They are all doing an extra bit to protect their families and everyone around them. Everyone is doing it. I am doing it. We are all sharing cars and doing our bit for the environment.

My job and that of the Rural Independent Group is to protect our families and the people of Ireland who elected us to protect them now and in the future. As I said, we all have our own green agenda, but the Government has single-handedly driven inflation in this country through its views on social media and everything else. Now it is open up to propaganda everywhere and people are jumping on the bandwagon. People are suffering because of these views. We all have the same vision, but the vision is a transition as we have always said.

I remind the Government that if people get sick - please God, they will not - what will come to collect them is an ambulance run on fossil fuel. If there is a fire in a house, what comes to put out the fire? It is vehicles with fossil fuel engines. Our schools and most of our hospitals run on fossil fuels. Garda cars driving around the country are run on fossil fuel. People all want to make a difference, yet the Government cannot see that. The Minister of State needs to wake up. Deputy Collins has said three or four times that the Government needs to wake up to the here and now and protect people into the future.

Off the shores of Cork there is oil to be got, which would make us self-sustaining while we work for the future. The Government and the Minister, Deputy Ryan, are not even replying to requests for licences. Instead, they want to increase emissions by bringing fuel from across the world into Ireland. We need to be self-sustaining.

We can see what happens in Europe. We are at the end of the chain when it comes to getting food in here at exorbitant prices because the Government has stopped us from being self-sustainable for the here and now. Yes, we see into the future and everything is changing, but the Government cannot just turn a switch. As I have said before, it is like "Star Trek" with the Government. We are here and the Government is beaming us to there without any transition. We want the transition and we want to be allowed the time to transition, but the Government has to help and to save all the people of this country for the transition rather than taking us out of existence.

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