Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil leis an Cheann Comhairle. Déanaim comhghairdeas léi ar an vóta inniu. It is great to be able to talk as backbenchers on the first Private Members' debate for which we have time. Everybody should get time here. I am sharing with Government backbenchers, although Deputy Nolan and I are not in that category.

I praise all the front-line staff, especially those in the ESB, outdoor council staff, the Civil Defence, the Red Cross, contractors, including agri-contractors and plant contractors, farmers, volunteers and nurses, who go out all the time. We used to call them district or community nurses. I lament one fear uasal, John English, who was a wonderful farmer and contractor and a great family man. He died only last week and was put to rest at Castlegrace where he lived. He needed power for equipment he used due to his ill health which, thankfully, he got, and he died peacefully.

Storm Éowyn highlighted the dangers of the Government's energy policies and grants, which left people sitting in the cold, with no grants or planning and no way to heat their homes. It is pure unadulterated nonsense that people are forced to build houses, when getting planning in the country, which is so hard to get, with no chimneys and no way of heating anything. I hope we learn the lessons from that.

We should also support small organic growers, which have been significantly hit. They are not able to apply for the grant because their incomes are too low and are not included in it.

Trees and hedges by roadsides should not be there.

I asked for the hedgecutting period to be extended by a fortnight or a month this time but no because the Government is still being controlled by the Green Party. Health and safety must trump the birds and the bees and all of that stuff. We must also do forward planning for two or three generations, something like the Welsh Assembly did, so we would have generators, power and alternative energy. We are cutting off our nose to spite our face. I know the Greens have been run out of office but the problem is they have people appointed in different official positions who will continue to implement those policies, unless an Rialtas takes this by the horns and goes back to nature. Let nature do its work.

I have to mention ash dieback and the failure of successive Governments over the past 15 or 20 years. Farmers are powerless due to the way the issue has been treated, as are foresters. I wish the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, well because the former Minister of State, Pippa Hackett, single-handedly destroyed forestry. We need to think wisely and smartly, not have all these fanciful schemes because when the storms hit and the power goes out, people are perished in their homes and cannot cook, boil an egg or do little else. They cannot watch the news or do anything else and are switched off from reality. We need to change our policies.

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