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

I am not in favour of this and will explain why. The agricultural sector, a cornerstone of Ireland's economy, is heavily dependent on fossil fuels for machinery, transportation, production and processes. A rapid transition could disrupt this sector, leading to economic instability and potential job losses. I am delighted Deputy Ring is in the Chair because I wish to relay a story through him to the Minister of State and the House. Over the last few days, the people over at COP have been talking about protecting our environment and the world. Every one of them missed what was happening in Ireland in the last week. There are fallen animals - in other words, cows, calves, pigs and sheep that have died. Does anybody in this House recognise that in County Kerry alone, in a week, there were 1,000 fallen animals? You cannot bury them at home so they were rotting on the top of the ground. I will describe exactly what happened to them. Every dog from miles around and every rat from 100 miles devoured them at night. We are lucky the weather was cold. Did it bother the Minister for the environment, Deputy Ryan? Did he or the Minister for agriculture do anything about it? I have worn a path to the Department asking it to do something about the rendering plants. They are over in Dubai talking about protecting the environment and we have motions like this. Does anybody care about the thousands of animals on top of the ground, rotting, that cannot be collected? Nobody is talking about that. Talk about an environmental disaster and upset to people's families and farming people to look at those animals. Animals can die at marts due to accidents and different things. I know of marts where numerous animals died and could not be collected. Nobody is talking about it because they are more worried about trying to ban fossil fuels and starve people of means of surviving. Do they have any notion of low family incomes and how they will heat their homes?

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