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

During next year's local, European and general elections, the public will have the same interest in Fine Gael as they would have in contracting the bubonic plague. Why? That is because they will not trust it. When I and my colleagues in the Rural Independent Group continually raise the fact that it is looking at reducing the national herd, the Taoiseach denies that. I want to thank Ciaran Moran and the people in the Irish Independent and Farming Independent for their FOI request. A dossier was released containing proposals of which Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Greens were well aware. They have all been behind this. It proposes another massive cull of the national herd. I want the Taoiseach to say something to Irish farmers and people in rural Ireland. I have said continually, and I get no satisfaction from saying it, that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have lost rural Ireland. The Greens never had it. Fine Gael lost it because of the way it continually treats people in rural Ireland, in particular people in the farming sector.

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