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

Teddy McCarthy, a diesel engine mechanic, garage proprietor, petrol seller and bus operator from Sneem in County Kerry recently recounted to me the following. I will not name the vehicles involved because it would be wrong to do so. No more than naming people who cannot be here to defend themselves, naming the vehicles could be very damaging to the people who produce them. I will say they were expensive models of motor cars. One of them took off from Dublin. It had cost €82,000 and it was heading to Sneem. It made it as far as Tipperary. The next car cost €117,000 and it made it as far as Limerick. It is a sad day when someone pays almost €200,000 for two motor cars that cannot drive from Dublin to Kerry without stopping. I know of plenty of cars that could be bought for €200 that would go from here to Belfast and from Valentia Island to Derry no problem in the world without stopping once. People would not have to stop them. One fill would carry them. Everybody who wants to know already knows that the best-performing vehicle we can have is a well-serviced and well-maintained diesel engine. The Minister does not want to admit this because he is on a solo run but I will give him a couple of hard, sore facts and I would like him to listen to them if he does not mind.

We look at what a electric vehicle is and what makes it work. Lithium is used in it. What about cobalt? Cobalt is the most valuable ingredient in electric vehicle batteries. Two thirds of the global supply is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Human rights activists have raised concerns about conditions there, in particular about child labour and harm to workers' health. Like other heavy metals cobalt is toxic if not handled properly. Alternative sources should be exploited, such as the metal-rich noodles found on the sea floor. They present their own environmental hazards in trying to retrieve them from the sea floor. If that was being done the Minister would not be happy with it either.

I want to ask about the children. I ask the Minister, the Green Party, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil whether they have any concerns for the children who have to mine these materials for their fancy electric cars and their electric vehicles. It is a fair question. Do they have any concern about what is being reported by child protection agencies around the world? They have stated that children's health is being completely undermined and they are being hurt every day by being forced to work in these mines to produce the materials for the batteries they are proposing. It is a form of child abuse. No one of us would entertain a child being abused in any way. There is no reason a child in this world should not be protected and nurtured. The Government and its electric vehicles are paying no attention. I have never heard the Minister raise a concern about it. I ask him to please tell me if I am wrong. I never like to wrong anybody. I ask him to stand up here and tell me I am wrong if he has made a speech in the Dáil or any other public forum raising concerns about how the batteries are produced. Please let me know if he did so and I promise that I will correct the record. I am accusing him of ignoring this fact. I ask him to please put me right if he thinks I am wrong.

The Minister cannot stick his head in the sand forever. He cannot ignore the facts forever. The wherewithal is not in Ireland at present to produce enough electric vehicles to do the job he is asking them to do. For example, how we will replace farm machinery with electric vehicles? How will the machines work on the roads or in our quarries? How will they propel themselves? How will a hydraulic motor be worked that is powerful enough to break rock, to dig deep into the ground to make the roads and piers, to build the bridges and to do the everyday things we have to do if we are to exist in this world? In other words, the technology is not yet there.

Something the Minister has always supported is the proper storage of slurry on farms. Farmers cannot be told if a tank is full of slurry that they cannot have a tractor to agitate it, suck it out or spread it. How does the Minister propose to empty the tank? If we cannot have animals inside in the sheds we cannot have food. What will we all do? Will we go hungry?

It is like earlier today when I highlighted the Minister's glib comment that he would ban boilers by 2025. He did not think that one through either. Certainly he has not thought through the electric vehicle issues. If he did, the very first thing he would have said was that he is worried about the children. He is not because he has not said he is. I do not know how much longer he and the people who support him can ignore the hard fact that he seems completely detached from day-to-day living and the ordinary problems people have.

We are an island nation. How will the lorries go around the country to deliver the food required to keep us all alive? What about all of the other produce that needs to be brought here by ship? What will we have? Will we have sails or electric ships? The technology is not there to replace the diesel engines that are powering these vehicles, be it at sea, in the air or on land. Air travel is something else the Green Party never seems to want to talk about. It seems to completely ignore air travel. It certainly has not told us its proposals. Will it ban the people from getting up in the skies? Are they to stay where they are unless God gives them wings?

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