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

I thank Deputy Mattie McGrath's office for helping us with this motion. This is Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in action together at the behest of the Green Party. They want us to cull cows, rewet land and reduce production by other means through the nitrates directive. Last year, the Taoiseach at the time, Deputy Micheál Martin, was violent when I asked if the Government was considering reducing the number of or culling cows. The Minister denied it. Here we are today because the Green Party kept the pressure on and ensured the Government would go through with this proposal.

I always thought a Minister from rural Ireland would stand by the people of rural Ireland but I am disappointed to see this proposal coming forward because this will mean a reduction in farmers' incomes and a reduction in communities at large - the rural communities that are under pressure financially as it is. After all the support Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael got over the years in rural Ireland, this is what they are doing to it. They are giving in to the Green Party even though this is not fair at all because we are giving no cognisance at all to sequestration and the amount of carbon farmers are already sequestering. They are sequestering way more carbon than a lot of them, or even most of them, are admitting. We are being told now that even growing green grass sequesters carbon.

The Government is threatening food security. We are trying to get young farmers going and keep them going but they are saying this will be the kiss of death for the dairy industry. Farmers' incomes will be cut. The Government denied this last year and kept it from the farmers even though it knew that with the 25% cut in emissions, it would have to do something drastic like this. It was told that 16% or 17% would be enough but that is not even what other countries are doing. The Government is going ahead with this because it wants to pacify the Green Party and stay in power for another few months.

Farmers all over the country and in Kerry have spent fortunes inside their gates, slaving in the green fields and the glens and valleys of Ireland doing hard physical work where they injure themselves and hurt their backs and spend the second half of their lives physically impeded. They have worked so hard and strived so hard and they have become the most sustainable, environmentally friendly and efficient producers of beef and dairy products in the whole world. I can see that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have little appreciation for what they have achieved and what they are doing.

This will also mean a threat to our food security. It will mean an increase in the cost to the consumer and to the housewife. The Government does not have any regard for that. Who will take up the slack? Is it going to be like the peat and the briquettes from Latvia and Germany? Are the South Americans, the Brazilians who are cutting down forests, going to supply the market? We have produced food to such a high standard and have supplied food all over the world as well as feeding ourselves. There are 750 million people starving in the world. Our population is increasing and here we are suggesting we cull the cows. Indeed, Elon Musk is laughing at this. He cannot understand it. The USA is making cartoons about us and laughing at us because the Irish are cutting cow production. This is laughable. This is what they are saying. Whatever the Government does and whatever hardship it puts the people of Ireland and the farmers under, it will not change the weather. I can ensure that. The Government is hurting people. It is leaving the people who supported it over the years behind. I am very disappointed with the Tánaiste, Deputy Micheál Martin, and with the Minister.

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