Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

This will not do. The Minister of State and Senator Cummins sounded like they wanted to scream but they would not dare to do so. They are like two flight stewards who have discovered that the pilots are taking the flight to London and on to Paris and they want to shout and scream and tell us all they are crazy but they are afraid that they will panic the passengers. It is obvious that despite their measured tones they are horrified at the direction things have taken.

I note that towards the end of his speech the Minister of State made a passing reference to something he will have been very well aware of because it was in the Westmeath Examinerlast week. On its front page, the Westmeath Examinerhad one of the most bizarre stories any of us will have read for some time. It summed up the very strange contradictions that exist in our energy and climate change policies. To be clear, the report was about 4,000 tonnes of horticultural peat which had been imported to Ireland, having been transported 3,000 miles from Latvia, on 200 trucks. That peat is now being stored in Rathowen, next to where an extraction had been abandoned in 2019. Am I not correct, Minister?