Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

People Before Profit does not support this Bill. We have every sympathy with small rural family farmers and fishers in communities that have been decimated in rural Ireland. I was listening to the debate before I came to the Chamber. The expression "that beats Banagher" occurred to me as I listened to Deputy Nolan quoting the late, great Tony Benn, a pro-choice socialist who absolutely stood on the side of the people. Looking up the phrase "that beats Banagher", I found it means "wonderfully inconsistent and absurd". That really fits the Deputy's contribution. Perhaps we should change the expression such that instead of referencing a town in her constituency, it becomes "that beats Deputy Carol Nolan". She was wonderfully inconsistent and absurd in the way she used the socialist Tony Benn to make an argument he did not make. He would never have thought about how to take down NGOs and people who advocate for the environment. The argument he made was about how we can take down elected politicians who break promises on the basis of which they got elected by the people.

It is not a coincidence that this Bill is being discussed on the same day the debate on the Planning and Development Bill 2023 is to be guillotined by the Government. Once again, the Rural Independent Group Members are acting as sheep in wolves' clothing. They are doing the work of the Government by seeking to undermine environmental protections and promote the interests not of ordinary rural people but of big business, big farmers and the agrifood industry. The Government will do the same tonight, via its planning Bill, by stripping what limited democratic rights exist out of the planning process. It does not want ordinary people and working-class communities to be able to object to big business- and developer-led planning, no matter how destructive those plans are for our environment and our communities.

The Government, including its Green Party members, will seek tonight to designate liquefied natural gas, LNG, terminals as strategic infrastructure in order to stop people and environmental activists from objecting to them. The Rural Independent Group Members, no doubt, will support the Government on that. They have been the loudest voices in the Chamber in advocating for the Shannon LNG project to go ahead. Undoubtedly, there are many others in the Chamber who would like to do the same in respect of data centres. If the Government succeeds in ramming through its Bill tonight, which looks likely, then An Taisce, ironically, will be one of the few organisations left that will legally be able to object to anti-environmental and pro-big business development. The Government's planning Bill makes it much harder for NGOs and communities to object to such development by forcing them to jump through bureaucratic hoops and requiring them to be legally registered organisations with a constitution and so on. The new law will be a barrier to activist groups and less organised grassroots residents' groups.

Mattie McGrath and the rest of the Rural Independent Group want to get rid of An Taisce's role because they want an untrammelled right to profit for big farmers and big business in this country, and to hell with everyone else. Over the years, An Taisce has played an important role in protecting Irish heritage and the environment. It has often been the one to speak truth to power and to hold the Government and big business to their environmental commitments. An Taisce held the Government to its commitment regarding the Climate Change Advisory Council. The Government failed to follow the science, resulting in weak recommendations on reducing agricultural commitments. An Taisce insisted on domestic action regarding the nitrates derogation and to reduce methane emissions, both of which would reduce the size of the national herd through a reduction by way of an exit scheme and a capping of herd sizes at 200 cows. By God, something like that is needed. Anybody with a heart would have been affected by watching the "Prime Time" programme last night on the treatment of calves for live export. The attitude to An Taisce is because of challenges like these to the huge power of big farmers and the agrifood industry in this country. I do not believe it is out of concern for small farmers and rural communities, the interest groups An Taisce protects, that the Rural Independent Group is putting forward this Bill.

A major investigation recently by an organisation called DeSmog found that intensive farm lobbying is "preventing Ireland from addressing its poor air and water quality and meeting its climate targets". DeSmog reports:

The intensive farming lobby appears to be in the driving seat. Major dairy processors in particular have been ramping up lobbying efforts around Ireland's derogation from the EU Nitrates Directive, designed to tackle farming pollution.

Meanwhile, the article notes, many small farmers feel "locked in an unsustainable food system they do not profit from". Dr. Elaine McGoff, head of advocacy at An Taisce, told the DeSmog investigation:

The intensive agriculture sector in Ireland is incredibly effective at lobbying, and at using their platform to push a false message of sustainability from a number of different angles... This is clearly a very well oiled machine, one whose primary purpose is to sell a false narrative that we can continue business as usual and not pay the environmental price.

This is why the Rural Independent Group and the far-right anti-environment, anti-immigrant and anti-women forces that are amplified by the group's Members hate An Taisce so much and want to sabotage it. I have no doubt they will support the move tonight to bring LNG into the country. I want everyone in the House to know that climate movement members will be at the gates of Leinster House at midnight to demand that all of us in the House, and Green Party Members in particular, do the right thing by voting against the planning Bill tonight, the debate on which is being guillotined.

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