Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I welcome Dr. Gafarova and the Azerbaijani delegation to the House, particularly on behalf of our former colleague Terry Leyden, who is a neighbour of mine. As Terry could not welcome you here, I am glad to do so. It is great to have you here with us today. I hope you enjoy your visit to Ireland. I hope your engagement with speakers from the other parliaments is a very productive one. I hope it will lead to stronger and better relationships right across the world.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this legislation because I was involved its original conception. Therefore, Deputies can imagine my disappointment and shock when I realised that the Minister with responsibility for energy is, in effect, being written out of it.

As the Minister of State knows, Gas Networks Ireland was originally, through Bord Gáis Éireann, directly responsible, accountable and under the remit of the Minister with responsibility for energy just as the other energy networks in this country - EirGrid and ESB Networks - were all under the remit of the Minister with responsibility for energy. I felt very strongly that Gas Networks Ireland, which had been taken out of that remit, should be reinstated within the remit of the Minister with responsibility for energy, the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, particularly because it has such a vital role to play in the decarbonisation of our energy supply.

I disagree with Deputy Paul Murphy that we should be looking at shutting it down as quickly as possible. I think we should be looking at removing carbon from the gas network as quickly as possible. Tomorrow morning, we could increase the percentage of biomethane in our gas network and we could also introduce hydrogen into our gas network without altering the network system that is there at the moment, but significantly reducing the overall carbon footprint of our gas network in this country very quickly with the stroke of a pen. However, I do not think that will happen if Gas Networks Ireland is under the remit of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. It is wrong that this is the case and that is the reason I wanted to raise the issue here.

I know the Minister of State will come back and quote an EU directive, but the reality is that today electricity generation and electricity transmission is under the remit of the Minister with responsibility for energy, the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications. He has responsibility for electricity transmission not only in this jurisdiction but also in Northern Ireland and our gas network should be under the remit of the Minister with responsibility for energy and energy policy. I ask the Minister look again at this situation and to engage with the European powers on it.

Gas Networks Ireland has a major role to play in decarbonising particularly in the area of district heating. Disappointingly the development of district heating in this country has ground to a halt because we are waiting for the introduction of legislation to stimulate the market when what we should be doing is directing Gas Networks Ireland to drive this whole network right across this country - not just in the Irish Glass Bottle site in Dublin, not just in Tallaght as a pilot initiative, but in towns across this country which can tomorrow morning be reconfigured to take a district heating system. I think of places like Cavan and Roscommon towns in particular. About ten or 12 towns around the country have public loads available to them and could make district heating available where those public loads are in very close proximity to each other and where much of the legwork has already been done. However, we are doing this in a piecemeal manner.

It is proposed to bring legislation to the House whenever that might be. The drafting of the heads of the heating Bill is ongoing at the moment. When that legislation is in place, we expect the private sector to come in and stimulate this, rather than directing our own semi-State company to drive this forward. It will require a direction from the Minister with responsibility for energy, the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, to make this happen. However, disappointingly, the Minister with responsibility for energy is not the Minister that holds this company to account but rather the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. With all due respect, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage has enough on his plate at the moment without trying to manage Gas Networks Ireland as well. I ask the Minister to look again at this issue because Gas Networks Ireland has a key role to play in decarbonising our heating system in Ireland, not just through its existing network where, as I said, we could dramatically reduce the amount of carbon in the gas network tomorrow morning with the stroke of a pen if the political will was there to do it, but also in driving forward district heating initiatives in communities, towns and cities right across this country. It should be to the fore in delivering that.

It is disappointing that while district heating was a priority in Project Ireland 2040 and Gas Networks Ireland was seen to be a key driver of that, it was erased from the revised national development plan published by the Government in 2021. While it states that there needs to be a fundamental shift in the way we supply, store and use energy, we do not elaborate on that. Gas Networks Ireland is a semi-State company that could be instrumental in managing this not just with the existing gas network, but more importantly with district heating. It should be to the fore in developing green hydrogen in this country. If tomorrow morning the Government directed Gas Networks Ireland to take on a new remit, to try to drive decarbonisation of the existing gas network, to look at driving initiatives on district heating and to lead the development of green hydrogen in this country, I think investors from outside would look differently at this country and would look at a country that wants to drive that fundamental shift in decarbonisation. However, instead of that, we are kicking the can down the road and we are looking at this in a piecemeal manner, not taking a co-ordinated approach to it.

Related to that is the area of geothermal energy. As the Minister of State will know, the Department had plans to bring forward a geothermal energy development Bill. Two years ago when I asked the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, about the progression of this, he told me that in November 2020 there was an assessment of geothermal energy for district heating in Ireland published along with the report, Geothermal Energy in Ireland: A roadmap for a policy and regulatory framework, but that it required further research, the development of a draft policy statement and final policy for consideration to be presented to the Government. Little has happened since then and that was over two years ago. We are still looking at the possible preparation of legislation in this area. Right across Europe, particularly in northern Europe, geothermal energy is a key driver of heating both in individual homes and in district heating. I believe it is a far more sustainable solution for driving the conversion of heating to electrification in this country than air source heat pumps. However, we still do not have the legislative framework in place and there seems to be no indication that we will have that legislative framework anytime soon. Gas Networks Ireland, working with Geological Survey Ireland, could positively move this area forward.

However, instead of that we are treating Gas Networks Ireland as a traditional company. It is dealing with a dirty energy - less dirty than some other energies, but still a dirty energy. We are trying to brush it under the carpet and keep it as far away from the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications as possible because he does not want to dirty his hands with it. I can understand that, if it is a fossil fuel company. However, there is a unique opportunity to change the remit of Gas Networks Ireland radically. We should use it as an innovative semi-State company, driving a new plethora of alternative energy sources in this country, radically delivering clean green energy in individual homes and communities throughout the country, but the commitment is just not there to do it.

One thing that was disappointingly airbrushed out of the revised national development plan was to develop town-scale pilots for food and agricultural waste for anaerobic digesters within the agricultural catchments to provide an outlet for some of the slurry that we are now talking about, which is causing significant problems for dairy farmers with the nitrates directive. If that had been implemented, we could be taking that slurry, reducing the nitrate ratio per hectare on those farms around the country, and providing a sustainable, clean alternative with biogas for district heating in a number of towns and industries, but nothing has happened with it. That has fallen by the wayside over the last five years because it has not been a priority.

There are opportunities, not just here in the Docklands in Dublin or in Tallaght, which is the only pilot that is up and running. There are ten to 12 provincial towns around this country where district heating could be developed as a viable solution, with the State taking on the bulk of the load of that district heating and ensuring that new housing development in those towns is based on a clean, green district heating system. It is deeply disappointing that we look at these problems the same way as we have always looked at them and we are not prepared to use our semi-State companies to drive a new level of innovation that is so vitally important if we are going to achieve the objectives that we set out in decarbonising our economy.

I want to finish with one other point on decarbonisation. It touches on a comment made earlier by Deputy Paul Murphy. It relates to the better energy warmer homes scheme. We should ensure that when we carry out these retrofits, they are in a manner that leads to decarbonisation of those homes, but the reality is that under the better energy warmer homes scheme, the grants alone are not acting as a sufficient stimulus for people to carry out the retrofits of their home. The reason for that is that many families do not have the capacity to borrow the additional money that is required.

Sadly, when I was in the Department, I strongly made the argument that we should introduce 0% long-term loans to facilitate the deep retrofitting of homes and all the economists argued with me at the time that this is not the way to go. I have just come from a meeting with the Ministers for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform and Finance. I made this very point to them in our pre-budget submission, as I made it last year, the year before that and the year before that. Bizarrely, the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland has come out in the last few days and endorsed such an approach to this. I know from talking to families around the country that they are willing to carry out this investment, but they do not have the capacity to borrow. We need to introduce an innovative scheme where the payback would be through a person's utility bill, whether an electricity bill or gas bill. This has been done previously by the electricity companies in this country with the shallow retrofits. Why will we not do it for the deep retrofits? It is not a case of reinventing the wheel.

The other aspect of this scheme is the warmer homes scheme. It carries out a 100% retrofit, free of charge, for people in fuel poverty. They are people in receipt of the fuel allowance who desperately need this work to be carried out. Unfortunately, those people currently have to wait for nearly two years for that work to be carried out. I note that the team that goes out to carry out the assessment of homes has become far more rigorous with regard to what homes it will allow into the scheme. The homes that are losing more heat are the ones that are most likely to be denied access to this scheme. An all or nothing approach is now being taken by the SEAI. If it is a standard, three-bedroom, semi-detached home, the SEAI says it is grand and it will do the retrofit. If there are any unique challenges with the home or it is an older home, the SEAI walks away and says it does not meet its criteria, that it is a heritage home, the SEAI cannot do anything with it, and people will have to wait for another few years before anything happens.

People are left, two years down the road, with astronomical heating bills, in fuel poverty, and the State is saying no thanks, and that it is not going to help people out. Surely to God, the basic thing that should be done with regard to those homes, after people waited for two years to be told, is for the SEAI to at least ensure that shallow measures are carried out. Insulating the attic alone will have a significant impact on the heat retention in every single home in this country. Replacing the lights with low energy-consumption LED lights will have an impact. Sealing the windows and doors to take the draughts out of those houses will have a significant impact.

They are all low-cost measures but they will have a big impact on keeping older people in fuel poverty warm in their homes for significantly less than it is costing them at the moment, but the SEAI says it is all or nothing, and that it does the deep retrofit if it is a standard house. If it is not a standard house, the SEAI says no thanks, and that people will be left high and dry. That is wrong. The warmer homes scheme is about addressing fuel poverty, not about dealing with low-hanging retrofitting fruit for the SEAI, so it can clap itself on the back and say to the Minister that it has reduced the waiting list because it is excluding the most vulnerable families, individuals and homes from the scheme. It is wrong and I ask the Minister to revisit it.

Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent)
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While I appreciate that this Bill is largely technical in nature, in that it deals specifically with the need to facilitate the integration of Ervia and Gas Networks Ireland, GNI, and to provide for the transfer of functions and assets from Ervia to GNI, it also raises very serious issues that merit our scrutiny here today, including relating to the delivery of strategic national infrastructure in the areas of water and gas. I would also like to know what the reason for its delay was, given that the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, told us in December last year that he hoped that this Bill would be ready by early 2023. We are now almost ten months into the year.

I would also like to ask if the Minister of State believes that pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill was sufficient. As I do not sit on the Committee on Environment and Climate Action, I was surprised to read that the committee conducted only one engagement with stakeholders, on 4 July, and that involved just three senior civil servants from the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, who were the principal officer, assistant principal officer and administrative officer. This seems quite odd, given that the legislation provides the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage with 90% shareholder control, with the remaining 10% split equally between the Ministers for the Environment, Climate and Communications and Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform. I also find it odd that the pre-legislative scrutiny report only made a single recommendation, which was for the passage of the Bill through both Houses of the Oireachtas.

I would also like some clarity on another matter. The general scheme of this Bill provided for no policy matters regarding the future of the role of gas, which I understand was to be provided for through the EU gas package following the conclusion of the trilogue process. This, of course, is an area of policy that is causing consternation and indeed outrage.

We only need to look at the bizarre decision around the Shannon LNG project, which I fully supported along with my colleagues. While this Bill may be technical, at some point we will have to have a very practical debate on the future of gas supply and energy security in this State.

I will refer briefly to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, warmer homes scheme. It is shameful that pensioners are very concerned about it. They are being left on a waiting list for too long. I cannot get clarity in regard to the timeframe in which they will be waiting in Laois-Offaly. A number of pensioners in their late 80s are concerned about a hard, cold winter because they cannot get works carried out through the warmer homes scheme. It is unacceptable in this day and age.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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While the Gas (Amendment) Bill 2023 may appear on the surface to be another routine technical Bill, it harbours a disconcerting truth regarding Ireland's energy security, one that should keep us awake at night. This Bill sets in motion the transfer of all responsibilities related to the national gas infrastructure from Ervia, the current overseeing entity, to a newly formed publicly owned body, namely, Gas Networks Ireland. Though this transition might seem benign, it is inextricably linked to a larger more ominous issue, which is the Government's puzzling reluctance to fully support the Shannon LNG gas facility.

Let us be crystal clear. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have deceived and sabotaged the Irish public with their energy policy. Their fingerprints are all over the sabotage of the Shannon LNG project. The evidence is undeniable. The Government removed the Shannon LNG terminal from the EU projects of common interest list in 2021. It did so before An Bord Pleanála even had a sniff at the planning application. Imagine making a move to kill the project long before it could even see the light of day. This display of political manipulation is frightening and makes it clear that this action was in direct contradiction of the previous government's policy in 2020. I remind the Minister of State that in 2016, I ensured provision of an LNG facility at that land bank in Ballylongford was included in the programme for Government. Unfortunately, this Government, to be honest, ably assisted by the Minister of State and his party, ensured it was taken out. It is all laid out on page 36 of the current programme for Government signed by none other than Micheál Martin and Leo Varadkar.

This is the same Micheál Martin who went to north Kerry to canvass before the most recent election. He went to Ballylongford, Tarbert, Moyvane, Knockanure, Listowel and everywhere and told them all he was with them. He said he would deliver for north Kerry through supporting the Shannon LNG facility, revitalising all these communities, putting people living in all these houses, having work for everybody, and that there would be great prosperity. The minute the election was over and his candidate was landed home, he forgot about Knockanure, Kilmoyly and everywhere. He forgot about all of north Kerry, Limerick, Clare, and east, south and west Kerry. He left us all go to hell. He left us high and dry because he finished up with his prize, which was being Taoiseach and then Tánaiste.

It is written in black and white in the programme for Government: "shall withdraw the Shannon LNG terminal from the EU Projects of Common Interest list in 2021". It could not be any clearer. The programme for Government leaves no room for ambiguity when it declares the three Government parties "do not support the importation of fracked gas". This was a calculated move and part of a larger strategy by both parties to distance themselves from fossil fuels to satisfy the Green Party. They even went as far as signing a document in 2020 to halt any new fossil fuels infrastructure, including LNG facilities. Any attempt by their representatives to shift the blame for derailing the north Kerry LNG facility project is a work of blackguarding, fiction and a deceitful narrative aimed at covering their tracks and maintaining their power-sharing deal with the Green Party.

After the most recent general election, the Rural Independent Group was ready and eager to engage in Government formation talks with Fianna Fáil, or anybody if it would make sense. We genuinely believed we could bring progress to rural Ireland. However, it became painfully evident that Micheál Martin had already chosen to align with the Green Party, while disregarding the needs of rural communities and the entire nation. For the life of me, I cannot ever understand how any politician can think they can face into County Kerry again, be they Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Green Party, or anyone else that supported this nonsense. I will be honest. Shame upon them because what the Government has done is to threaten the security of energy in this country for decades ahead.

We were ready, willing and able. There was a company that was willing to put up €650 million. It has already spent tens of millions of euro on this project. It was ready to go. What did the Government do? It abandoned it. For what? Was it so we could rely on England and the French? What does the Government think they will do with us the first chance there is of a hiccup? At the first sign of any trouble, does the Government think they will allow us to have gas through the pipe network and interconnectors? Not in a million years. We will be left to whistle our ducks to water. That is what will happen to us. We will be left high and dry. We will not have turf or gas, while at the same time the Government is telling us to use more and more electricity at a higher and higher cost. It is not telling us where it will come from, but it is telling us where it does not want it to come from. Has the Government totally and absolutely lost the plot?

A very good friend of mine, Nicholas Browne, continuously tells me the Green Party is doing exactly what it said it would do. It is even doing more than it said. Nobody should be saying to the Greens that they deceived them because everybody knew what they were about when they came into government. The people who really sold us down the river, however, were those in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. They are trying to be greener than the Green Party. I cannot understand why. If I live to be 150 years of age I will never understand it, but I know one thing. I will tell Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael this again and again because they hate to hear it - they hate it and there is nothing they hate more - they have lost rural Ireland. The Green Party never had it but they have lost it. When I say they have lost it, let them see how they get on when a general election is called. Let them be out up and down the country and see. Rural Ireland will kick back and say, "To hell with ye, the same way ye said to hell with us", because the Government shut down Bord na Móna and everything. It is against everything and for nothing.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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This Bill is about switching or joining Ervia to Gas Networks Ireland and putting control of the pipes under one heading. However, the question is whether there will be any gas in the pipes. As has been said, if there is any breakdown or any shortage of supply coming from the direction we are getting it at present, it is surely only common sense to say the French, the English and all mainland Europe will ensure they have gas before they will let it go west as far as Ireland.

We had a golden opportunity to have a Shannon LNG terminal on the Ballylongford land bank. The company that was behind it has invested at least €100 million in this worthwhile project. It lodged another application two and a half years ago and, lo and behold, the Minister, Deputy Ryan, put in a submission against it. I contended last week - during Leaders' Questions I raised the same issue regarding the Shannon LNG project as well as other matters concerning County Kerry - that that was a very unusual departure. I said it was not acceptable for a Minister to lodge an objection to an application like this. Indeed, when one of my family members applied for planning permission a few years ago, the director of services advised me not to make a written submission for it.

I had to be seen not to be involved, yet here we had a Minister making a submission against this application, thereby undermining the State's energy security. He has already done a great deal of harm by closing down Bord na Móna at Shannonbridge and Lanesborough. I am told many elderly people will not have briquettes this year. Briquettes were coming from Lithuania or somewhere else in recent years, but that has now been deemed illegal and there will be no briquettes to be had this winter.

People are still cutting turf in Kerry. I am glad to say I am one of them. Since 1803, turf has been cut on our bog in Kilgarvan by a Healy from Rae. That has continued through the generations, including this year when Maura Healy-Rae stood and footed the turf, brought it home herself with a dumper and put it into the shed. That is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The same will happen next year, if we live for it – we hope we do – and the year after that.

Stopping the Shannon LNG project was nonsense. We had the chance to obtain gas from South America and many other sources in the West, but that is being denied now and the State’s energy security is being compromised by the Government. We have to blame Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Like Deputy Michael Healy-Rae stated, the Tánaiste canvassed the length and breadth of north Kerry with the now Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, when both of them promised the people of north Kerry that, if they sent Norma Foley to the Dáil and if Fianna Fáil got into power, Fianna Fáil would deliver on the Shannon LNG project. A few days later when it joined with the Green Party, it signed a memorandum saying it would not support the project. That is deceit of the highest order and it must be recognised and called out as such. The Green Party is not the only party responsible, or Fine Gael to a lesser extent. Fianna Fáil has major responsibility.

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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The Bill is substantially uncontroversial in its content. One could argue that the Bill is overdue and necessary housekeeping in terms of public infrastructure. Like most Deputies I have heard, I have no difficulty with the Bill and would be surprised if there were any real opposition to its content. That said, this is an opportunity to have a wider debate on wider related issues. The discussion so far has predominantly been about them.

In the few minutes available to me, I wish to raise a concern with the Minister of State that he might take on board with his Government colleagues when considering the future direction of travel, particularly in the context of there being 600,000 or 700,000 homes – largely, but not exclusively, across rural Ireland – for which home heating through the gas network is not an option. Those homes are substantially heated by oil-fired burners. Most, if not all, of them want to play their part in the collective journey we are on as a nation in an effort to reduce our carbon footprint and play our part in the climate change agenda, in particular the appropriate efforts to decarbonise home heating.

In many respects, the Government’s approach to date to the issue of home heating appears to have been the promotion of the optimum solution exclusively. Electrification is the basket in which we have placed all of our eggs.

That is an error of judgment and one which should be revisited for a number of reasons because it is impractical, particularly for many rural homes for whom the cost of a deep retrofit heat pump solution is prohibitive. It is also the wrong direction of travel because in being so prescriptive, there is a danger that we lose a lot of the goodwill people have in those situations towards a general commitment to decarbonising their home heating.

There are alternatives to electrification, one of which is hydrogenated vegetable oil, HVO. It is the Minister's view that HVO is of limited supply. If we send signals to the marketplace that we want more HVO, then we can commence two steps in respect of home heating. One, initially, would be a commitment to blending HVO with kerosene. There is capacity within the industry to retrofit existing oil boilers for a modest sum - under €1,000 would enable existing boilers to run on HVO completely or on blended fuel. In my constituency, there is Firebird in Baile Mhic Íre, and there are other manufacturers such as Grant in the midlands, which manufactures new boilers that are HVO compatible. If we send a signal to the marketplace that we want more HVO, the market will respond in terms of the volume of supply available. If you look at somebody in rural Ireland who does not have the option of a Gas Networks Ireland connection and whose heating system at the moment is an oil-fired system, if that system goes belly up and the direction of travel is to prohibit the replacement of new oil burners, at short notice, they are faced with no heating. In order to procure a contractor to carry out the deep retrofit, the heat pump solution advocated as the alternative by the Government is at best several months, not to mention the costs involved. Whereas, for a couple of hundred euro, you can modify your existing boiler or for a couple of thousand euro buy a new boiler that is HVO compatible. That HVO will decarbonise existing heating solutions by up to 80% - some say closer to 90%. The danger is that the optimum solution the Government advocates runs the risk of missing its targets substantially and of losing the goodwill of a cohort of people for whom there are no practical alternative solutions.

Electricity does not necessarily become available in a decarbonised way. We import electricity on the interconnectors; some of it is nuclear-powered electricity. Some have an objection to that; I do not. There should be a mix of options available. At the heart of the mix of options should be the requirement to decarbonise. HVO is a viable alternative. It supports rural communities in particular. It is an affordable option and there are employment opportunities in that sector. The Government should revisit its current approach to the heating carbonisation in that context.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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I appreciate the Ceann Comhairle allowing me to contribute this time because my colleagues needed the other time. They had a lot to say on this issue, being from rural Ireland, as we all are in the Rural Independent Group. I am the same. I do not have any personal animosity towards the Minister of State, or the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, whose grandmother - a sheanmháthair - agus a sheanathair, an bheirt acu ó Tiobraid Árann Theas, his seanathair as Caravansary, a wonderful public house in The Glen of Aherlow, and his granny, apparently, from Clonoulty. It is common enough for a lot of people who come to Dublin - the first or second generation - to throw away their wellies and never again want to see them or hear about them. It is kind of see no evil, speak no evil and hear no evil and just to tut-tut and say we are away from that, we will become cosmopolitan and forget about the country. I do not mind the Government forgetting about the country at all, because it has, but I would like it if it would leave us alone to eke out an existence and live a happy enough existence like our forefathers and forbears did. It wants to persecute and destroy us and make us impoverished. That is what is happening to our country. I am not being alarmist. The Government cannot seem to see it.

I too, like Deputies Michael and Danny Healy-Rae, Deputy Michael Collins and Deputy Nolan, would say, if you get on to Bord na Móna, the bogs and the just transition, it is the most unjust transition you could ever design. Then there is what the Government did with the Barryroe oil field, which I called an act of national sabotage. Companies were bringing money into the State. They wrote and wrote to the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications and whatever else but he would not answer the letters for three and a half years. It frustrated them. He then decided to block that pipe by putting concrete into it. I have children - they are reared, thank God. I also have grandchildren. They were playing outside with sand and gravel and they blocked the pipe from the sink into the drain. They would be buachaillí agus cailíní dána but to think a Government agency would do that as an act of decommissioning - it is one thing talking about guns or something else - and to a national treasure and piece of infrastructure.

The men in the white coats should carry out investigations into what is going on in this country. We do not have any mental health services but something is badly wrong if people are just carrying out national sabotage that is undermining our strategic investment. When I think back to T.K. Whitaker, Seán Lemass and the people who founded this country and, indeed, the visionaries who brought electrification to all of rural Ireland, they did some job.

For the last ten years, we have talked about broadband and we cannot bring it in. We are spending hundreds of millions. There are many good private providers, one-man and one-woman bands, and perhaps a couple of people working who have their own masts and provide it in local areas. The Government is banishing them and putting them out of existence because there is this new provider that will give it to so many homes a minute or an hour. It has failed utterly to deliver a basic tool necessary to carry out business, to be educated and to transact anything now. For rince classes, ranganna rince, for example, they get the music and the different styles of dances and tunes on their phones. They need good broadband in a hall to do that. Farmers need it for satnav and GPS in the fields spreading fertiliser. They do not want to overspread fertiliser, so they need that, but they do not have the broadband to do it. The Government must know that. If it does not, it should.

I refer to Irish Water, now Uisce Éireann. I always say the only thing I liked about Irish Water was the cúpla focal Gaeilge - Uisce Éireann. I salute and thank the county council officials, outdoor staff and the plumbing section especially, and the ordinary general operatives, for the work they have done. Going back further, I salute the men, helped by the women, in the video I saw recently of the Ballylooby water scheme when it was being dug by hand. The late Joe Rea was involved in it. He became a fairly notable IFA leader and brought water to people. There were group schemes, and the Ceann Comhairle will know what I am talking about. We assisted them in some cases - a lot of them before I arrived. When I was walking home from school I saw Willie Barry, who is still alive. I saluted him in Cappawhite, laying pipes up my road and bringing water to our houses. Before that, we had to draw it from the hand pump down the road - the Graugh we called it - with a horse and cart or tractor and cart. We had to fill it by hand, pump it into buckets and barrels for the cattle. That is the way it was, and not 100 years ago. Those visionary people brought us water, as people from Ireland working in different organisations do now in Third World countries in Africa. We know the value of water.

Then, there was the big furore with Irish Water and the whole hijacked debate around it. Water is a very valuable commodity. One cannot do anything without it. The group schemes were taken over by the county council and many were decommissioned. There were good supplies of water. Then Irish Water took over.

In the transposition of the statutory instruments across from the county councils to the function of Irish Water, one very important part, namely, the ancillary drains at the back of houses, was left out. They were built and put in by the council but now the households are left to deal with it. I tried to get that amended in legislation, as was done in England, but we could not do it here. It is a case of to hell with the people. Let them sort out their own you know what.

As for Irish Water, this year there was a big furore. Other speakers thanked God that it was resolved, but it has not been resolved in Tipperary. There was a handover of everything by 20 September, the same day we arrived back from our recess. It is kind of resolved in Cork and there is something in Waterford but we in Tipperary are still dealing with it. There was industrial action during the year by union workers, whom I salute and support. They are entitled to have certainty of tenure and employment and to have their rights and the increments they earned with the county council carried across to Irish Water if they are working for it. At my last engagement with senior management within the county council, which was at an Oireachtas briefing, they gleefully told us that from 20 September they would have no more to do with water. I met the workers on the same day. It is like the management is glad Irish Water caught it and is saying "Off with ye" to the workers as they are delighted to get rid of it.

The situation for the people who have group schemes is scandalous. Many of those group schemes have now been turned off and we are told they are not fit for purpose. Last night, I raised a Topical Issue matter about the baile of Cluain Meala and the water situation there. I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting that matter. In Clonmel there are valuable supplies from Poulavanogue, the Ragwell and from up in Glenary. All three venues are in County Waterford but they do not mind giving us water to supply our town and county. Irish Water wants to shut off the finest one we have, namely, the Poulavanogue one, which worked all summer and did not have any outages. Irish Water is going to stop it and then pump the water back up the road to the people. It is lunacy. Irish Water has a fine reservoir there. It told us at a public meeting that the reservoir was damaged outside. Now it is telling us the reservoir is damaged inside. It does not even know where the reservoir is. That is the major problem with Irish Water - it does not know where the infrastructure is located.

Good men who worked as caretakers on the water system have approached me on the street. About six months ago, a man was almost crying telling me about it. He told me he enjoyed his job and that he had often worked with me. People rang him at all hours of the night and day and he kept the water going. Six months before he retired, he invited Irish Water to send a man out with him in order that he could pass along his knowledge, help to map it out and point out the location of all the air valves, sluice valves, stop valves and all those key pieces and joinings, such as where another main can be added in if there is an outage in an area. Irish Water refused his offer. Imagine an insult like that. He wanted to impart to the next person the knowledge he had built up. Now what happens when the water goes out? What happened recently in Glenahiry? Irish Water was dissatisfied with the council caretaker up there and his staff. It sent in a SWAT team who worked in the plant for three days. They turned off, moved and twisted every valve and did tomfoolery of all kinds. At 5 p.m. on the third day they said they had failed and they were out of there. They told nobody else. The town was without water. The poor caretaker had to go back in and try to find out what valves they had moved. They kept no account of what they did. They do not know or understand the plant. We had a very wet summer but there is no water in the pipes in the houses. The Talbot Hotel in Clonmel was without water for 40 days between April and early September.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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We will have to go back to the gas now. I know water is great craic but-----

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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Yes, but if there is no water there will be no gas.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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True.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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If you are fracking gas, you need to have water to keep things cool. It is all part of the construct that was set up and the separation of duties. I will go back to the gas but I am just saying that we have three reservoirs. There is one in Carrick-on-Suir on the Lingaun river, another in the Ardfinnan regional water scheme and a third in the Galtee region water scheme. They are massive plants. The one in Ardfinnan is relatively new, as is the one on the Lingaun, while the Galtee one is maybe 30 years old. They cannot be filled this year because of technicalities and issues that Irish Water does not understand. They cannot be filled. We then have outages, low pressure and shut-offs at night time. People cannot understand it.

I will go back to gas. My apologies to the Ceann Comhairle. I refer to gas, gas terminals and liquefied natural gas, LNG. There has been such a breach of faith. I am leader of the Rural Independent Group for the time being. I organised a meeting with the current Tánaiste, Deputy Micheál Martin, after the most recent election. We met in a neutral venue but, as he came on his own, I knew well he had no intent. There were five or six of us and one or two of our staff or supporters. He had no interest whatsoever in joining us. We were prepared to support that Government - without the Green Party, of course - but he had no interest. Some people may say he had no choice but he did have a choice. The prize of becoming Taoiseach, however, was the only thing he saw. He had tunnel vision. He saw that prize. He did not want to be the only leader of Fianna Fáil never to be Taoiseach. By hell, the country is paying a price for it. The Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, said last night that in fairness to me and my colleagues, we are against the carbon tax. He does not know what way Sinn Féin is. It changes with the daily weather and the weather changes four or five times a day. We are against the carbon tax. Of course we are. It is a punitive tax that is unfairly hitting elderly, vulnerable and rural people. We stand where we are. In fairness to the Green Party, it stood up for its policies. I know what those polices are but I would not and could not support them. I am totally opposed to them. It is a sad state of affairs. Deputy Micheál Martin made his bed with the Green Party and now he has been bitten. It is not easy to lie in it. It is getting a bit itchy and tenuous. I will not say anything about dogs lying down with fleas. I do not mean that in any bad way. I am just referring, metaphorically, to the way he has blackguarded the country under the Green Party. They shut down the bogs and turf.

We wanted to have a floating LNG terminal in Cork. There is the Ballyroe oil field. The Shannon LNG terminal was talked about for decades, but the policy of Eamon Ryan and all the Green Party was to stop that at all costs. It has achieved that goal in a relatively short time. The Green Party should congratulate itself on living up to what it says on the tin. It is honouring its election pledges. The pledges that Deputy Micheál Martin made when he was canvassing are another matter, however. I will not name all the villages in Kerry as I do not know them all anyway. The Minister, Deputy Foley, campaigned there. Deputy Micheál Martin said that a prime plank of his policy was to make sure the LNG plant in Kerry was going to be put forward, but then he, with his colleagues, signed up to a deal with Fine Gael and, at the behest of the Green Party, put it into a statutory statement and sent word to Europe that they were going to destroy it. They have destroyed it and that is an act of sabotage. I would call it nearly treason. We are depending on a pipeline bringing gas from England and God knows where else, the burning of turf has been stopped, the bogs have been closed, power stations in Lanesborough and elsewhere have been closed and peat is being brought in from Latvia and other places. One could not make it up. Nobody would believe it.

Deputy Michael Collins and I went to meet the Society of the Irish Motor Industry, SIMI, and solid fuel suppliers today. The latter group are furious. They cannot sell smoky coal. If they are selling coal, they have to be regulated and within the law but there are lorry-loads of coal coming down. People phone them up for a price and then tell them they are charging €7 more a bag than what it can be got for elsewhere. It is being brought from Lisburn to yards in Cork, Kerry and Tipperary the next day. Where are the customs officials? Where are the VAT inspectors? Every day of the week, we come upon RSA inspectors on the road. There is the Garda, the RSA, Revenue and the Department of Social Protection. There is a whole clutter of them. Why are these people not being flagged? This fuel is being brought in here illegally and it is wiping sole traders out of business. John in Ballingarry, who is a great man, was one such sole trader who employed a few people when he was busy. He has been wiped out. We are being told we cannot burn the smokeless but these lorries are bringing in loads of it. That is rubbing people's nose in it. It is no wonder people are angry, agitated and annoyed. This has affected the solid fuel suppliers, the people who worked in Bord na Móna and elsewhere and the people who had the promise of more work in Kerry when that energy terminal began working. Above all, however, the Government had a duty to ensure a fuel supply chain to keep the country alive.

I was sitting in the Chair when previous speakers, from Sinn Féin and other parties, referred to the numerous warnings this year from EirGrid about outages, even in the middle of summer. People are being turned off their gas, oil and coal and everything else but data centres have been allowed to increase their usage of electricity by 400%. Why would the Government give data centres - multinational companies - preferential treatment while destroying the livings and livelihoods of Irish families? What has got into the Government to make it so anti-Irish families and so pro-big multinational companies? That is one basic and glaring place it has fallen down. It is hunting people off bogs for cutting turf.

I am glad that people went to Moanyarha this year i gContae Phort Láirge, next to my parish, and cut turf. I am glad that Maura Healy-Rae was there to cut the turf, turn the turf, stand the turf, load the turf and bring it back home. Please God she will be able to it on the fire and keep the stove going in the pub in Kilgarvan. I am glad that many more people did that. It is only common sense. The turf is of the land. They are God's given gifts of commodities and food.

It the same story with the cows. The Government said they are giving off too much gas. It wants to go after the gas. The cows are giving off too much gas - it is great gas altogether - and the Government wants to stop them doing that. The thing is, it does not add up at all. This might all be slightly funny, but the people are seething with anger. The Government wants to force them into electric cars, and they cannot get them charged. It will not at any time look at the construction and the materials that go into the batteries for the cars, and the lithium that is mined by children. It is child slave labour. The Minister of State can put his head down but he will not look at that. It is a horrific abuse of children, yet it is fine to make bigger batteries. When I was going home the other day I saw a bike with a battery. It had a big long bar on it and there was a battery like a Toblerone inside the bar. I was told that the battery was inside the frame of the bike. We are happy to starve our people and for them to perish, kill their livelihoods, their culture, their heritage and dúchas as well. We will kill them, but import all this stuff. We are not interested in the fact that it is coming from lithium that is mined by slave labour. We have no interest in that. We do not mind; we are the best boys in the class. We are going to go green and electric and we do not care where it comes from. We cut off our nose to spite our face as regards resources. They are natural, God-given resources from when the world was created.

There is a continuous attack on the farming community. It is relentless. The Ceann Comhairle mentioned the continuous spin that the farmers are pollutants. Agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, will not inspect the county council effluent plants. They are not plants at all; they are big septic tanks. I told the Minister of State there are 30 in my county. I told the county managers that the last day as well. The EPA should not have produced that report about the rivers when it was not going to be fair and inspect the local authorities' effluent plants. It blamed the farmers. It is a three-card trick. The farmers have done their best to mitigate and it is going to take years for some of the solutions and improvements to work. The EPA is not fit for purpose. How dare it produce a report and turn a blind eye to the local authorities. I was sent a picture during the summer by two young lads. It was one of the nice summer days. Two young farmers from my county were out on a boat off Dún Laoghaire here in Dublin, and they saw two trails of sewage going into the sea. It was plain as day in the video they took. The Government tries to demonise the farmers when it will not fix what is going on in its own house.

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for his forbearance. Mar fhocal scoir, I think this whole construct of setting up this new company is fanciful and it will not work. Look at the experience that we had with Irish Water.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Deputy McGrath, I am going to have to interrupt you because by order of the House, we have to finish on this now. I ask you to propose the adjournment of the debate.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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I thank you for your forbearance.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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When we come back, you will have a minute and six seconds.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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I propose the adjournment.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I thought we might get through this, but alas and alack.