Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the guests to the Gallery, who are the custodians of the land. I will take no lecture from our Green Party colleague from Limerick, Deputy Leddin. Farmers do not want incentives. They want to be left alone to look after the land they have nurtured and cared for for decades and generations. They do not need whizz kids from the Green Party with mad ideas telling them what to do. This is the problem. There has been no consultation or engagement. We have desperate experiences of Coillte and the neglect of its properties. We have the desperate experience of Bord na Móna and all State bodies. The EPA has not challenged county councils, including Dublin City Council, for pumping sewage into rivers, yet the Government want to demonise and blackguard farmers, the people who put food on our tables. I ask the Government to withdraw this legislation.

We are not climate deniers, but there is real science out there that is alternative to what Government is peddling and has bought into. Those real scientists are being demonised, receiving hate mail and being cancelled. This is a bad situation. This is also happening with the migration debate. People cannot say a word without being demonised and being put into a bracket of the loony left or something else.

The Government is not respecting the electorate. The electorate has not given the Government carte blancheto do what it is doing. It is bad for Ireland. We need to feed our people and export everything else. Our people will be hungry if the Government implements its policies. It did more damage in 2007. I was a backbencher and saw what happened. The tentacles are still there. They are wreaking damage. What the Minister, Senator Hackett, is doing at this point in time is shocking and is antagonising ordinary farmers and the people. The Government should get down and engage with and talk to the people. Ní neart go cur le chéile

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