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

I am speaking to the specific amendments we have before us now, and the one thing that jumps out at me from amendment No. 232 are the words "national policies and measures, including those prepared pursuant to the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015". This proposed amendment is from the Minister and ties in with what we touched on earlier concerning costs.

When we talk about climate action and building houses and adhering to the aims and aspirations of climate action, we must just remember one thing. To build a house, it takes concrete, timber, diggers, diesel and cement. The one thing I am worried about is that if we were to take the aims of what the Government is hoping to do, it would be possible to come along and say that we would ensure we would do no damage to the environment by not building because this would be one way we could solve the problem. Very sadly, however, the Government will have to wake up to the fact that to make an omelette, you have to crack an egg and to build a house, you have to use these materials.

The diggers have to go in. It is not possible to dig the foundations of a house by hand anymore. The people who came before us did what were called footings by hand, and they dug them with shovels. You would not get many people to dig the foundations of a house now with a shovel. It is necessary to start the digger in the morning to do so and you must put diesel into it. We have seen all the silly nonsense where we had electric diggers that had to be charged. How were they being charged? It was not possible to charge them off an ordinary outlet, so it was necessary to start a generator to charge the diggers. What went into the generator? It is a thing called diesel. It would have been much easier to put the diesel into the diesel engine and start the digger. This is the type of nonsense coming from the Green Party, and I am not picking on the Minister of State, because, as I have said before about him, he is a very nice man.

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