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

The nitrates derogation reduction becomes a reality from 31 December, changing from 250 kg N/ha to 220 kg N/ha. This means we will have to slaughter 40,000 heavily-in-calf cows this coming year because there is no other market for them, and 160,000 in the next four years. Farmers will have reduced incomes, and smaller farmers will become unviable. Tim Herlihy, from Inches in Rathmore, has 58 cows now. He worked hard to bring his herd up to this figure. He has told me that his adviser has told him that he will have to reduce this number to 48. This is because he cannot rent or buy any more land, as it is too expensive.

This is the first time in history the farmers of Ireland have been compelled to cull their cows. If we do reduce production, it does not follow that consumers will reduce their consumption, unless the Government can organise a hunger strike worldwide. The consumers, though, will have to get their food somewhere else, and it does not matter to the Government whether it is from Brazil, Argentina or New Zealand. The Government does not mind as long as it can get the figures here down. But we are all under the same sky, so surely if we are talking about the climate and carbon emissions, then it should also matter if the other crowd are also increasing and creating more emissions.

Has the Government ever heard of such a thing as sequestration? The Government is telling the farmers of Ireland that it cannot measure the sequestration of carbon until 2027, or later. At the same time, however, the Government is hell-bent on reducing the cow numbers this year because Eamon Ryan wants it to and the members of the Government are under his apron. For the Taoiseach and for Micheál Martin to stay in power, as well as the rest of ye, they will sell the farmers of Ireland.

Do they know what is happening in the rest of the world? I had to go over to the USA for a couple of days last week for a funeral. There are the biggest of vehicles. There are roads over you, under you and up and down beside you with six lanes on all sides of you. All these vehicles, the biggest of vehicles, are all petrol; eight-litre petrol engines. Germany is mining new coal mines. China is building hundreds of coal-burning power stations. I certainly know you do not have to have AdBlue in India.

Turning to water quality, and surely this is what this is about, why is the Government not so interested in doing something about the hundreds of treatment plants in settlements around County Kerry, and areas around the country that have no treatment plant?

They are polluting the water.

If all of us evaporated from the country tonight, it would only make 0.13 of 1% of a difference worldwide. This is the torture the Government is putting the people through for the sake of Eamon Ryan and staying in power and for no other bloody reason. That is what you are at. It is driving the farmers and the people of Ireland down through the ground. That is what the Government thinks of them.

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