Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We completely oppose this motion at every level as it represents something akin to a deal from a gangster movie. It is completely outrageous that the Cabinet approved the purchase of 4.1 million carbon credits from Slovakia at a cost of €2.9 million in some sort of hypocritical way to help meet the 2020 emission targets. The fallacy of this deal is exposed by the fact that Slovakia was allowed to increase its emissions by 13% by 2020 compared with 2005 levels while Ireland had to reduce its emissions within specific sectors of the economy by 20% under EU regulation. This means that Irish people are being unfairly burdened to achieve unrealistic net-zero targets. Clearly the Slovakian Government negotiated a much better deal at EU level than Ireland.

The Irish people are bearing the heavy burden of achieving these unrealistic targets. The Rural Independent Group read the contract documents associated with the deal which the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, signed on 14 February 2023 with his counterpart in Slovakia. The next day we issued a stern statement calling on the Government to abandon this dreadful deal immediately. This is why we will not support the motion. This is a scandalous situation in which we find ourselves.

I met with the Irish Farmers Association and the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association during the week. Irish agriculture and dairy farmers are being ruined by this Government with its nitrates directive. It destroys ordinary farmers and the ordinary hard-working dairy farmer with its carry on. It better row back or Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will face this on the doorsteps because the Green Party is finished anyway.

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