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

Failure after failure after failure; that is the result of the policies from this Government when it comes to energy, fuel and how to manage our economy. As was already stated, the Government closed Bord na Móna without thinking it through and we are now bringing in briquettes from Germany. Nobody thought of or mentioned the horticultural industry until one day in here I started a debate about it. All of a sudden, everybody woke up and realised that the Government had completely forgotten about horticulture and peat was required in that very important industry. Anything that has replaced it since is not as good as what we had ourselves. The Government threw the entire industry to the wolves. Now that I mention wolves, there is a Minister who wants to reintroduce those wolves to the country. That is a different subject.

There are unprecedented increases in the basic necessities of life, including fuel to power and heat this country. The Government seems to be completely ignoring the fact that other parts of the world are waking up to this. The Green Party in Germany, for example, had a minister announcing plans to reopen coal mines. How long will it take for the people here to realise that we will have to start looking at reintroducing licences for people to drill off our coasts? There was nothing whatever wrong in doing that. People will have to realise that we must consider using everything, from turf to renewables like solar or wind farms. We should not narrow the focus to leave us so vulnerable that something like what is happening with Russia can lead to the tap being turned off, leaving us high and dry. That is wrong.

I welcome that last week the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, came to Kerry and Mr. Tom O'Shea from Spunkane in Waterville presented him with a sod of turf. I am very glad it was in front of him for over two hours because he got a good chance to look at it, think about it and know that he was in Killarney in County Kerry, which has a proud tradition of saving turf. During the war, when turf was needed, where was it supplied from but all over the country, including County Kerry. People left Kerry and went working on the Bog of Allen. Great jobs were created by Bord na Móna over the years but there is nonsense spouted about going from brown to green. People should read the book Brown Gold: A History of Bord na Móna and the Irish Peat Industry, and after that they might realise the mistake made with Lanesborough and Shannonbridge. What was done was a disgrace and the Minister will be remembered for that for a long time.

We have excellent companies that want to carry on exploring around our coasts. We have a massively underutilised resource off our coasts but in the Dáil we seem to have people racing to the bottom. Anything of any use or any good that we can supply or do ourselves is rejected because it may be harmful to the environment.

In 2016 I was very glad to ensure that Shannon LNG was put into the programme for Government and it was stated as an aspiration that it would be developed by the Government. When the Green Party came into power, it insisted that it be taken out of the programme and not put in again. That was an unusual act because it seems it was suitable for one programme for Government but not the next. There are now members of the Cabinet objecting to it, which is a disgrace. I was very glad to attend a meeting recently where I complimented local Fine Gael councillors who went against the leader of their party in stating very publicly their full support of Shannon LNG, as others did.

That is what we want. We want a liquefied natural gas facility because it is badly needed. The war has compounded that and shown it up to be a fact. The sooner the Minister of State and the rest of the Government wake up to that reality, the better for the people of this country.

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