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

I can tell the Minister and Minister of State that Fianna Fáil has lost rural Ireland, Fine Gael has lost rural Ireland and the Green Party never had it to lose it.

I want to tell the Minister and his colleagues, some of whom are shouting me down, a story about what happened at my clinic the other night. I was invited into the home of a lady called Nora, who is nearer 90 years of age than 80. When I went into her house, she had a very small bit of a fire going, with maybe five or six lumps of coal in the back of the fireplace. She had a red blanket over her knees, there was a very small bit of heat and she was very near the fire. This woman is living on her own and has no relatives. She talked to me about the price of a bag of coal. I would look nice trying to tell that woman about the Minister's retrofitting grants. She is barely living hand to mouth. All I can tell the Minister is that he and his colleagues in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael should be made to go to that house and made to listen to what that woman said. She asked me what has happened to the people who are in power. She said she remembered when there were people in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael who would stand up for the likes of her. She said the Green Party would never have had any interest in her anyway. That woman really drove it home to me about what the Minister and his colleagues are doing. During Leaders' Questions today, I will be talking about Firebird Heating Solutions, Kingspan and Grant Engineering, which are the people who produce the boilers the Minister has said he looks forward to banning in the future. I will go into more detail about that on Leaders' Questions.

I remind Fianna Fáil of what it did in north Kerry before the last election. The current Taoiseach went around places like Tarbert, Ballybunion, Ballylongford, Lisselton and down into Listowel.

He told the people when he was canvassing that if he was elected and formed a Government, delivering an LNG facility would be one of the policies he would pursue. He said he would deliver it. What the Taoiseach did, in respect of what I had ensured was in the programme for Government in 2016, namely, that we would have an LNG facility, was that he capitulated to the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and said it was against Government policy to have such a facility. He did a complete U-turn.

The people in those places will be looking forward with great anticipation to the next election. People will be shown up for the mistruths they told during canvassing. It will be highlighted to the people what was in the programme for Government in 2016 and what the Taoiseach subsequently did in 2020 just for the sake of power at all costs to the detriment of people. This has ensured that Ireland has no gas storage capacity as a consequence of Government policy. The south-west Kinsale gas field is now depleted and the Government has not pursued the option to use it as a strategic gas storage facility. While the German, Austrian and other EU governments are busily filling their gas storage capacity, Ireland, at the very end of the gas grid, is hamstrung by a Government with no plan. Germany is now reopening the coal-burning power stations to provide a practical buffer to the energy crisis. Ireland is the only country in Europe with a coastline that does not have an LNG import facility. This means there is no alternative to the pipelines running through the UK, as the Government has chosen to not add LNG as an option, as I have already outlined.

This unprecedented energy crisis is compounded by the Government's policy position on energy.

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