Paul Coghlan (Fine Gael)

We are in the middle of what is probably the worst economic crisis we have witnessed in our lives and, in the middle of the tourism season, in respect of which everybody is focused on saving and protecting jobs, on the second day of the week-long Killarney races festival, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, has decided to lock people out of Killarney National Park. This step on his part, regardless of its environmental merits, is sheer lunacy. It is a question of so-called equine sanitary devices, dung catchers or, in the simplest terms, horse nappies.