Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

If you are fracking gas, you need to have water to keep things cool. It is all part of the construct that was set up and the separation of duties. I will go back to the gas but I am just saying that we have three reservoirs. There is one in Carrick-on-Suir on the Lingaun river, another in the Ardfinnan regional water scheme and a third in the Galtee region water scheme. They are massive plants. The one in Ardfinnan is relatively new, as is the one on the Lingaun, while the Galtee one is maybe 30 years old. They cannot be filled this year because of technicalities and issues that Irish Water does not understand. They cannot be filled. We then have outages, low pressure and shut-offs at night time. People cannot understand it.

I will go back to gas. My apologies to the Ceann Comhairle. I refer to gas, gas terminals and liquefied natural gas, LNG. There has been such a breach of faith. I am leader of the Rural Independent Group for the time being. I organised a meeting with the current Tánaiste, Deputy Micheál Martin, after the most recent election. We met in a neutral venue but, as he came on his own, I knew well he had no intent. There were five or six of us and one or two of our staff or supporters. He had no interest whatsoever in joining us. We were prepared to support that Government - without the Green Party, of course - but he had no interest. Some people may say he had no choice but he did have a choice. The prize of becoming Taoiseach, however, was the only thing he saw. He had tunnel vision. He saw that prize. He did not want to be the only leader of Fianna Fáil never to be Taoiseach. By hell, the country is paying a price for it. The Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, said last night that in fairness to me and my colleagues, we are against the carbon tax. He does not know what way Sinn Féin is. It changes with the daily weather and the weather changes four or five times a day. We are against the carbon tax. Of course we are. It is a punitive tax that is unfairly hitting elderly, vulnerable and rural people. We stand where we are. In fairness to the Green Party, it stood up for its policies. I know what those polices are but I would not and could not support them. I am totally opposed to them. It is a sad state of affairs. Deputy Micheál Martin made his bed with the Green Party and now he has been bitten. It is not easy to lie in it. It is getting a bit itchy and tenuous. I will not say anything about dogs lying down with fleas. I do not mean that in any bad way. I am just referring, metaphorically, to the way he has blackguarded the country under the Green Party. They shut down the bogs and turf.

We wanted to have a floating LNG terminal in Cork. There is the Ballyroe oil field. The Shannon LNG terminal was talked about for decades, but the policy of Eamon Ryan and all the Green Party was to stop that at all costs. It has achieved that goal in a relatively short time. The Green Party should congratulate itself on living up to what it says on the tin. It is honouring its election pledges. The pledges that Deputy Micheál Martin made when he was canvassing are another matter, however. I will not name all the villages in Kerry as I do not know them all anyway. The Minister, Deputy Foley, campaigned there. Deputy Micheál Martin said that a prime plank of his policy was to make sure the LNG plant in Kerry was going to be put forward, but then he, with his colleagues, signed up to a deal with Fine Gael and, at the behest of the Green Party, put it into a statutory statement and sent word to Europe that they were going to destroy it. They have destroyed it and that is an act of sabotage. I would call it nearly treason. We are depending on a pipeline bringing gas from England and God knows where else, the burning of turf has been stopped, the bogs have been closed, power stations in Lanesborough and elsewhere have been closed and peat is being brought in from Latvia and other places. One could not make it up. Nobody would believe it.

Deputy Michael Collins and I went to meet the Society of the Irish Motor Industry, SIMI, and solid fuel suppliers today. The latter group are furious. They cannot sell smoky coal. If they are selling coal, they have to be regulated and within the law but there are lorry-loads of coal coming down. People phone them up for a price and then tell them they are charging €7 more a bag than what it can be got for elsewhere. It is being brought from Lisburn to yards in Cork, Kerry and Tipperary the next day. Where are the customs officials? Where are the VAT inspectors? Every day of the week, we come upon RSA inspectors on the road. There is the Garda, the RSA, Revenue and the Department of Social Protection. There is a whole clutter of them. Why are these people not being flagged? This fuel is being brought in here illegally and it is wiping sole traders out of business. John in Ballingarry, who is a great man, was one such sole trader who employed a few people when he was busy. He has been wiped out. We are being told we cannot burn the smokeless but these lorries are bringing in loads of it. That is rubbing people's nose in it. It is no wonder people are angry, agitated and annoyed. This has affected the solid fuel suppliers, the people who worked in Bord na Móna and elsewhere and the people who had the promise of more work in Kerry when that energy terminal began working. Above all, however, the Government had a duty to ensure a fuel supply chain to keep the country alive.

I was sitting in the Chair when previous speakers, from Sinn Féin and other parties, referred to the numerous warnings this year from EirGrid about outages, even in the middle of summer. People are being turned off their gas, oil and coal and everything else but data centres have been allowed to increase their usage of electricity by 400%. Why would the Government give data centres - multinational companies - preferential treatment while destroying the livings and livelihoods of Irish families? What has got into the Government to make it so anti-Irish families and so pro-big multinational companies? That is one basic and glaring place it has fallen down. It is hunting people off bogs for cutting turf.

I am glad that people went to Moanyarha this year i gContae Phort Láirge, next to my parish, and cut turf. I am glad that Maura Healy-Rae was there to cut the turf, turn the turf, stand the turf, load the turf and bring it back home. Please God she will be able to it on the fire and keep the stove going in the pub in Kilgarvan. I am glad that many more people did that. It is only common sense. The turf is of the land. They are God's given gifts of commodities and food.

It the same story with the cows. The Government said they are giving off too much gas. It wants to go after the gas. The cows are giving off too much gas - it is great gas altogether - and the Government wants to stop them doing that. The thing is, it does not add up at all. This might all be slightly funny, but the people are seething with anger. The Government wants to force them into electric cars, and they cannot get them charged. It will not at any time look at the construction and the materials that go into the batteries for the cars, and the lithium that is mined by children. It is child slave labour. The Minister of State can put his head down but he will not look at that. It is a horrific abuse of children, yet it is fine to make bigger batteries. When I was going home the other day I saw a bike with a battery. It had a big long bar on it and there was a battery like a Toblerone inside the bar. I was told that the battery was inside the frame of the bike. We are happy to starve our people and for them to perish, kill their livelihoods, their culture, their heritage and dúchas as well. We will kill them, but import all this stuff. We are not interested in the fact that it is coming from lithium that is mined by slave labour. We have no interest in that. We do not mind; we are the best boys in the class. We are going to go green and electric and we do not care where it comes from. We cut off our nose to spite our face as regards resources. They are natural, God-given resources from when the world was created.

There is a continuous attack on the farming community. It is relentless. The Ceann Comhairle mentioned the continuous spin that the farmers are pollutants. Agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, will not inspect the county council effluent plants. They are not plants at all; they are big septic tanks. I told the Minister of State there are 30 in my county. I told the county managers that the last day as well. The EPA should not have produced that report about the rivers when it was not going to be fair and inspect the local authorities' effluent plants. It blamed the farmers. It is a three-card trick. The farmers have done their best to mitigate and it is going to take years for some of the solutions and improvements to work. The EPA is not fit for purpose. How dare it produce a report and turn a blind eye to the local authorities. I was sent a picture during the summer by two young lads. It was one of the nice summer days. Two young farmers from my county were out on a boat off Dún Laoghaire here in Dublin, and they saw two trails of sewage going into the sea. It was plain as day in the video they took. The Government tries to demonise the farmers when it will not fix what is going on in its own house.

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for his forbearance. Mar fhocal scoir, I think this whole construct of setting up this new company is fanciful and it will not work. Look at the experience that we had with Irish Water.

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