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

The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and the Government have failed to grasp the enormity of this problem. What the Government is doing is actually only tokenism in trying to stop it. If the Minister had the same interest in attacking this problem as he did in attacking the good people who were out cutting turf, if he had less interest in people planting seeds on south-facing window sills and hoping they would get their dinner from it, if he had less interest in trying to make us all walk from our villages into a centre of population to borrow a motor car that 20 or 30 of us would own in co-ownership, if he had left some of those ideas after him and tackled this problem, he would be remembered more fondly for work and for sensible things instead of some of the fairy ideas that he had. I want to let the Minister know that his recent attack on the roads budget, and the fact that he tried to stop many road schemes throughout the country, will be remembered for a long time. In spite of the Minister, we got a lot of them back on. I am glad that we did but it really was a shameful act to go after people in their motor cars. These are honest-to-God people who pay tax, VAT, VRT and high excise duty on their fuel. They want to get into their car in the morning and go to work. They want better roads for safety for themselves and their families, and the answer of the Green Party and the Minister was to stop, block and obstruct roads that were ready to go to tender. These were bypasses and relief roads. The Minister has done everything he can to stop it and we will remember it for a long time. As long as I am here, I will never let it be forgotten.

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