Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Seo í seachtain na Gaeilge. Déanfaimid ár ndícheall chun an Ghaeilge a chur chun cinn. This is a Government-Rialtas of the three-card trick, as I call it: Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party. We are now talking about emergency energy generation. Here we are, about 18 months since we in our group said this was a crisis, a crisis was upon us and was going to come. Then the war arrived, that heinous war the Government has blamed everything on. Thankfully, the wholesale price is now lower than before the war. The Government has been caught napping. It has the cheek to introduce emergency legislation 18 months into a crisis, and the cheek to call it emergency legislation. It is just a bland excuse because the Government had an experiment during Covid-19 with experimental emergency legislation and the Government got away with black, blue and holy murder in that regard. The Government thinks it can slip it all under this radar now.

The first I heard of this on behalf of my group was last Thursday morning at the Business Committee meeting. We have seen neither sight nor sign of the Bill, there has been no pre-legislative scrutiny and there is no time - as I objected to today - to debate it. There are six hours for Second Stage and all the other Stages to Final Stage. In fairness, Deputy Naughten got an amendment in, but there was very little time to submit amendments. The Green Party is in government now. This is how it deals with people: the massive guillotine. The Minster, Deputy Ryan, is like wonder man; he can work miracles. He can stop every man, woman and cratur in the country from burning a turf fire, yet he cannot stop a drone being flown over Dublin Airport that is reckless and could bring down a plane with 300 or 500 people on it. What kind of tomfoolery is that? He is the Minister for Transport and we have no emergency legislation to deal with that.

The Government tells us this is an emergency, but we know it is not an emergency. I am all for getting the lights on. We have been warning about brownouts and blackouts and we spoke to EirGrid three years ago, which told us this was nigh. What did the Government do? It closed down a power station in the midlands, stopped gas exploration and stopped everything else it could. There are licences piled high on the Minister's desk that he will not even respond to. He tells us in the Dáil, as he told me last week, that licences are still being issued. He will not even respond to the mail. He does not have the respect to answer decent companies making an application to renew their licences. That was in part of the deal, all they had to was extend it, and the Minister will not even allow them to do it. He will not even give them the courtesy of doing it.

This is shambolic and the public are sick and tired of the Government. The public are paying the price and there is price gouging. The Government had to be brought kicking and screaming to use the toolbox the EU gave us to decouple the price of wind. You could talk a lot of wind and hot air in here. Balloons would take off if they were in here, I would say. The Government was told it could do it, but it still has not done it. Many other countries have brought in windfall taxes, but the Government has brought in none. The last speaker is gone - there is always someone from Sinn Féin here - but I was in Stormont yesterday and Deputy Howlin led a delegation from our committee C. We met different people dealing with the energy crisis. There is no windfall tax either up there. There are no supports either up there. Sinn Féin is supposed to be the party of the First Minister, even though it has not had a sitting. The door is dúnta. I walked up, it was locked and níl aon duine istigh. Tá an áit folamh. I do not know what is going on up there. I was going to suggest something, but I will not now because they will make a mockery of me. I will keep a béal dúnta for once.

You are codding the people. People are getting these bills and then some energy companies are giving a 10% reduction to businesses and nothing for the hard-pressed, unfortunate, misfortunate people out there who are trying to pay their taxes, live, put food on the table, and who are being priced out of existence. The Government talks about congestion taxes. It thinks it is going to throw 30 cars or ten cars, I think it was, into a village for three hundred people. There will not be any congestion in that village anyway if the Minister gets his way. We will all be on the rothar, síos an bóthar, freewheeling down the road. There are freeloaders in the Green Party who were in government when I was privileged, or not privileged, to be in with them in 2007 to 2011. I saw what havoc they did. The havoc they did that time is nothing to the havoc they are doing now. The Government allowed a pipeline to go across the country from Tiobraid Árann suas go dtí Baile Átha Cliath that caused massive damage, a project that was wilful waste. The Minister was to sign an order - I do not know if it happened or not - to send lorry-loads of ready-mix down to Ballyroe to block a perfectly good pipeline that is so high and fill it up with mass concrete so it could not be used again.

The fellas in white coats should come in here, back the wagons into the front gate and bring away the people dreaming of these policies and introducing and implementing them. It is crazy stuff.

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